Angry all the time
by Lady Maria
Summary: From funerals to weddings, the extended and blended O'NeillSummersGiles family tends to cause mayhem. Maybe the fact that they don't always get along is the reason for the mayhem...No, that can't be it.
1. Angry All the Time

Title: Angry all the time

Author: Maria

Disclaimer: I do not own anything other than two OCs, one of which I believe my muse would like to claim.  Besides which, they're old British ladies. What do I really want with them? Joss owns the Buffy universe and MGM owns Stargate. Well, we think they do anyway. If not, Stargate belongs to whoever owns it.

Genre: Action/Adventure but it leans into the humor genre as well

Rating: PG-13

Characters: Giles, Jack and other BtVS and Stargate SG-1 characters

Timeframe: After Season 3 for Buffy although it's still slightly AU for Buffy. No specific season for Stargate although it's set when Cassie is fifteen. My sister knows the season for that; I don't. Hold on just a sec…She says it's set somewhere during season four. I'll pretend I know what she's talking about since I don't actually watch the show very often.

Summary: Who knew what could happen at funerals?

A/N: Alright so this is the Midyear fic-a-thon response for Tassos. I tried to make it action/adventure the way she wanted but I have the feeling that I failed horribly. sighs I still hope she likes it and forgives me. I had a very hard time getting my muse to cooperate. Said muse was sulking over me going on vacation and leaving her behind. Which is, by the way, the reason why it took so long to get this out. Have fun reading!

Author's RequestAuthor's name: TassosGenre: StargateMax Rating: PG-13Characters: GilesType: action/adventureWant To See: Giles as the fighter and not the brain - in fact his knowledgecomes out as a surpriseNot Want To See: No romance, no calling Giles for help on a translation 

**Here we are **

Colonel Jack O'Neill glared at his team.  Daniel Jackson just grinned back at him while Major Samantha Carter turned away to hide her snickering. Teal'c was impassive as Jack started rant.

"They should have won! How could they have not won? Didn't you see that play? Why didn't the Avalanches win? Why did the Bruins win?!"

Sam shook her head. "Colonel, it's a game. Why does it matter?"

"Why does it matter? Did you hear her, Danny? Why does it matter? Teal'c, you tell her why it matters!"

Before Teal'c could answer Jack's demand with a response that probably would have had the colonel committed to the insane asylum, the phone rang. Being the closest to the phone, the Jaffa answered.  "This is ColonelO'Neill's residence, Teal'c speaking. If you have business you wish to discuss with ColonelO'Neill, press one now. If you have pressing issues to discuss in the field of telemarketing, press two now…You are ColonelO'Neill's father?"

At that point in the conversation, Daniel and Sam were both in tears.  They'd laughed so much that neither could form a coherent sentence. Jack snatched the phone from Teal'c having stopped chuckling when the caller had been identified as his father. "Dad, what's wrong? What happened? Dad…you can't expect me to go. Dad! Yes, sir. I'll see you then. Bye, love you too."

"My father's dead." Jack said this blandly as if he hadn't just been talking to the man fifteen seconds before.

Daniel and Sam suddenly sobered.  Daniel was the first of the two to speak. "Jack, you were just talking to your dad. How could he be dead?"

"Yes, ColonelO'Neill. I do not understand how a man could be talking on the telephone with us and yet tell you that he is dead."

"It's simple," Jack tried to explain. "He's not dead, but my biological father is."

"Wasn't that Mr. O'Neill?" Sam asked with an arched eyebrow.

"Yes," Jack nodded.

"Then how is he not your biological father?" Sam continued her line of questioning.

"He adopted me when he got married to Mom.  My biological father took off when I was a year old or so.  I only met the bastard once, when I was in my twenties and stationed overseas. Now I have to go to his funeral and play nice."

Teal'c inquisitively quirked his eyebrow. "Why go to the funeral if you didn't like him?"

"Dad told me to get my butt there 'cause even my half-sister's coming.  He says that if she can come to a funeral for a man she's never met, I can show up since I actually share blood with the jerk."

"I'll call General Hammond and tell him that SG-1 will be gone for your biological father's funeral," Sam volunteered quietly.

"Tell him?" Jack asked her with a laugh.

"Beg him to let us off for it?" she good-naturedly corrected herself.

"If all of you even want to attend the damn thing," Jack sighed.

"We're all going and you can't stop us," Daniel told him.  Then he looked at Sam. "You better get to calling."

**What is left of a husband and a wife, four good kids **

**Who have a way of gettin' on with their lives **

Several states away, a different type of team was gathered together.  Four teenagers were sprawled across the floor of a suburban home while their parental figures watched over them.  All four were caught in various stages of sleep. The brunet, Xander Harris, grumbled about food running away from him even as the two redheads, Willow Rosenberg and Daniel "Oz" Osborne, curled around each other. The blonde girl, Buffy Summers, thrashed slightly as she fought the monsters that haunted her even in sleep.

The father figure, Rupert Giles, smiled sadly.  "They look almost peaceful, don't they?"

His companion nodded. "That they do.  They don't look like eighteen year olds who blew up the school three weeks ago."  Joyce Summers eyed her daughter.  "Hank wants her to stay the summer."

"What did Buffy say?" Giles asked.

"She said she had too many responsibilities here to leave."

Before either could continue the conversation, the phone rang. Not wanting 'her' kids woken up, Joyce answered immediately.  She carried the phone out of the room and returned about ten minutes later. "We need to wake up the kids."

"What's wrong, Joyce?"

"My half-brother's father just died and I have to be at that funeral.  I don't want to take any of the kids into that environment, but I don't want to send them home either."  This was a reference to the fact that she'd kept all of them at her house ever since she'd discovered that Xander was an abused child and Willow was an abandoned one.  That had been several weeks before the graduation fiasco.

"Before we wake them up, I'll go home and make certain there aren't any messages on my phone."  For a second, Giles wondered what outsiders would make of the domestic scene being played out.  And then he realized that he and Joyce were acting like a couple-either that or a couple-to-be.

"Alright, but hurry." Joyce bit her lip. "I need to order my plane ticket and I don't know how much longer these four will stay asleep."

"Xander's chasing food. He'll be there for hours."

"Unless the food bites him again," Joyce laughed.

"True."

**I'm not old but I'm getting a whole lot older every day **

Giles looked around his apartment in dismay.  Had he been gone from England so long that he hadn't noticed the decline? But with a nod, he acknowledged that he had.  Not only that, but he'd stayed away from the older man ever since he'd realized that the man didn't pay much attention to his family.  Before Giles had found out about his mentor's betrayal, he'd been headed down the straight and narrow.

Then his mentor had turned out to have a son three years older than Giles. His mentor had left his first wife and son before the son, Jack, was even two years old.  Giles had been sixteen when he'd found out about Jack quite accidentally.

Giles crossed over to the mirror.  Hidden behind it were three photographs. There was one of Ethan and Ripper at about fifteen before they'd gotten completely out of control, one of Jack O'Neill, and the last one was a family portrait.

Rupert Giles flipped the Giles family portrait over, noting that it had been taken the year his mother died.  In his mother's handwriting, it listed those in the photo. His mother, Andrea Caroline Giles, was in there of course. He had just turned seventeen and his little sister, Janet, was seven.  She'd been taken to live in Louisiana with some French Creole aunt after their mother's death. 

And then his gaze ghosted onto the last name. Lord Jonathon Giles, minor nobleman and landowner in Sussex County, had shown up for the picture at least.  He had been too busy with his slayer, Lillian, to show up the other three times the pictures had been scheduled. Lord Giles had been attentive towards his heir up until his son had rebelled.

It never seemed to matter to the man Rupert had considered his mentor that Rupert had rebelled because his father had kept a whole other family from his second family.

Rupert gnawed on his lip, not caring that it would end up bleeding. He hadn't talked to his father in over twenty years, and now Lord Jonathon was dead.

"Guess I should go tell Joyce that I have to attend a funeral as well. I suppose I should take two of them, and she should take two of them.  Then we'll meet up again when we all return from the damn funerals," he muttered aloud.

**It's too late to keep from goin' crazy **

Jack looked around the small group of relatives that had already gathered. He didn't know most of them, and didn't want to.  His parents would arrive in five hours or so and his little sister hadn't called to say when her plane was due to arrive. Oh, and until the funeral, they were all stuck at the same hotel. Some relation apparently owned it, which meant that they were all staying for half the normal price.

"Breathe, Colonel." Sam had come up behind him

"Breathe?" Jack all but snarled. "I have never seen these people before and for all I know, they could be Apophis in disguise. Did you ever consider that possibility?"

Sam rolled her eyes. "Sure, Jack. You just want to get out of this funeral by pleading insanity."

"It's not insanity if it actually happens!"

A blonde girl came up to them as Jack uttered that strange remark. "Okay, I like you people, whoever you are.  Do either of you know where the food bar is?"

"There's a food bar?" Jack's eyes lit up.

"Yes, there's food around here, but it might as well be in the main Hell dimension for all I know where it is," Buffy told him. "I'm Buffy."

"Sam," the other blonde introduced, "and he's Jack.  Dare I ask why an American teenager is attending the funeral of an English guy?"

"Xander and I were given two choices. We could come to this funeral or we could go to a funeral for Mom's half-brother's father.  But either way, two of us were headed to each funeral." Buffy shrugged. "Willow and Oz said they were going to that funeral before Xander and I could so we ended up here."

"There you are!" Giles was more than relieved to find at least one of his 'children' but now he had to find the other one. "Do you know where Xander is?"

"Chill, Giles. Do you know where the food bar is?"

"Oh, yes. That makes perfect sense…"

"Of course it does," Buffy's tone was exasperated. "It's Xander. What do you really expect?"

"Wait, Giles?" Jack hoped his voice was calm.  The one time he'd met his biological father, he'd only heard of distant relatives.  "You're related to the guy who died?"

"Unfortunately, I'm his son." Giles rolled his eyes at the heavens.  It was far too likely that his father hadn't told Jack of him and Janet.  "He had about as much time to spare for me as he did for you. The only difference is that he could at least say that he was in the same country as me."

"You're saying I have a brother as well as a sister?" Jack confirmed.

"Oh, good. He did tell you about Janet."

"Who's Janet?" Sam and Jack chorused in unison.

"Obviously Giles, your father didn't enlighten him about Miss Raised-away-from-the-land-of-tweed so you're going to have to do it." Giles just glared at his slayer. She was getting entirely too much enjoyment from his pain.

**I've got to get away **

At the food bar, Xander had discovered that not only was everything free, it tasted good too. So he was barreling along at full speed ahead when he ran into something…someone.  Someone who went into babble-mode as Xander ran into them. Willow-babble.

"Will?" His voice was full of questions.

"Xand?" She spoke at the same time he did in the exact same tone of voice.

"What are you doing here?" Again, the question was in unison.

The redhead answered first.  "Joyce's half-brother's father died. You know that.  Oz and Joyce went to find her half-brother while I came to find food. Airline food has the capability of biting back."

"I don't know why you say that," Xander complained. "Airline food isn't that bad."

"This from the bottomless pit." Willow rolled her eyes.

As the two walked out of the room towards the larger room where most of the guests had been gathering, they continued to bicker.  "There is nothing wrong with being a growing boy with a healthy appetite."

"A healthy appetite is one thing, Xander, but your appetite isn't. It's abnormal." 

**And I understand that lovin' a man shouldn't have to be this rough **

**You ain't the only one who feels like this world left you far behind **

**I don't know why you gotta be angry all the time **

As the lifelong friends walked into room, several things happened at once. One, Joyce and Giles spotted each other. Two, Oz and Buffy saw each other and then their respective 'travel buddies.' And three, Jack caught sight of his younger sister.

Sam and Daniel, who had been talking to some of the extended Giles family, watched in disbelief as their team leader rushed Joyce.  He swept her off her feet and spun her around. "Glad you made it, sis. Where's your pipsqueak, pipsqueak?"

"I'm here; you can put me down now, bro," she noted dryly. "And my pipsqueak is close anyway. Not certain how close, but close enough."

"Really?" Jack asked in interest. As a redheaded girl came running up to his sister, he commented, "I didn't know red hair ran in the family."

Giles snarled. "You should try actually paying attention to the people you call family, _Jonathon_."

"And why's that, _Lord Giles_?" Both brothers matched each other word for word.  Buffy stepped out of the fray and pulled Sam and Daniel with her.  She nodded to Teal'c, who despite setting off her spidey-sense, seemed like a nice albeit quiet man. Or demon. She wasn't really sure what he was.

"The blonde girl you were talking to is your niece.  Her name's Buffy Summers, just in case you didn't know!"

Jack broke then, landing the first punch.  As flesh met jawbone, Giles let Ripper out. A spinning kick to the family jewels had Jack wincing but a punch to the stomach had Ripper doubling up.

Buffy grinned from the sidelines and yelled, "You're not going to show him what you're made of, Watcher-mine?"

That breathed new life into the Englishman. As he threw Jack into the hardwood floor repeatedly, Sam came alive. "Don't let some relative you don't like beat you! Come on!"

Then it was Jack's turn to come up swinging and pummel his half brother.

Joyce had had enough of watching the two men she loved, one as a brother and the other as a friend, fight. "Stop it this instant! Honestly, why do you have to hate each other?"

**Our boys are strong, the spittin' image of you when you were young **

**I hope someday they can see past what you have become **

By the time Michael and Mary O'Neill arrived in England, SG-1 and the Scoobies had claimed one room just for them.  Oz and Willow had called a corner and were both curled up there. Xander and Buffy had found a PS2 somewhere and had hooked it up to the television. They'd challenged Teal'c-they hadn't bought 'Murray' and Buffy had conned him into telling his real name-and Sam to a game of guys against girls racing. All four were sprawled in front of the television studiously ignoring the random outbursts from the couches. Daniel had ended up sitting next to Jack on one couch while Giles and Joyce were on another.

The man at the front desk directed the elder O'Neills to the room.  If they thought the fact that the man was wearing green makeup was weird, they didn't say anything.  At least, they didn't say anything until they'd reached the room with the sign on the door.

"Peace talks in progress-do not interrupt," Mary read out loud. "Why does that worry me to death?"

"I have the feeling, my darling, that it is supposed to be a good thing." Immediately after he said that, however, there was a large crash from inside. Michael slipped the key card in and turned the knob. Immediately, both rushed in.

It was with amusement that they viewed the scene within. Their daughter was standing above their son with her hands on her hips.  Her older brother was holding his head and moaning, presumably due to the books that lay scattered around him.

"Now, brother dearest, you better listen to Rupert or else there will be heavier objects launched at you."  Joyce exchanged an almost feral smirk with her friend.  Then she noticed where her daughter's attention had gone. "Mom? Dad? You made it."

"Good job, Mrs. S," Xander grinned. "You just made it sound like they'd arrived for a party instead of a funeral."

"Is that why the guy at the front desk was wearing green makeup?" Michael asked slowly.

"That's Lorne," Buffy told everyone. "He's some sort of demon that can tell your future by listening to you sing.  He's the bartender."

"How do you know this, young lady?" The look on Mrs. Summers' face told her 'children' that Buffy was in boiling hot water.

"I asked him why he was here," she shrugged.  "He knew me, I knew him."

"He's here because he's the bartender?" If Giles's eyebrows ventured further up his forehead, Buffy knew that she'd be screwed.

"Yeah, didn't I just say that?"

"Did you say 'demon?'" Jack asked slowly. "Because, you know, demons don't exist."

**I remember every time I said I'd never leave **

**What I can't live with is memories of the way you used to be **

**And I understand that lovin' a man shouldn't have to be this rough **

While Jack was having conniption fits about the impossibility of demons existing, Dr. Janet Frasier was having a conversation with her teenage daughter.  At fifteen, Cassandra Frasier was headstrong and curious.

"I don't get it!" she repeated for the fourth time in as many minutes. "You said you grew up in Louisiana!"

"I did, Cassie."  Janet returned to gazing out the window at the clouds. "I was born in England and adopted by my American aunt."

"You never said that you were adopted!" Cassie protested again. She then felt her mother's forehead and queried, "Do you feel sick? Have you been taken as a host?"

"No, dear. I'm not only well, I'm also quite myself." Janet flashed a smile at the teen before wondering how many mothers would have gotten that question asked of them. "Do you want to hear the story before we get there?"

Cassie nodded.

"My mother, Andrea Giles, died when I was seven years old." Janet pulled a broken locket out of her purse.  Opening it, she pointed to the family portrait. "That one there is my brother Rupert.  I used to call him Bert because I was obsessed with Sesame Street when I was small, despite the fact that it was an American TV show."

"What about him?" Cassie inquired, gesturing to the man standing behind Andrea. "Is that your dad?"

"He was my father. Actually, it's his funeral we're going to."

"You mean he's been alive all these years?" At Janet's nod of assent, Cassie started to seethe. "But you said you went to live with Grandma when your mom died."

"I did." Janet went back to scrutinizing the clouds that were shifting below them.  "Work always came first with Jonathon Giles. I remember that we rescheduled the portrait more than once because he was busy doing…whatever he did at work." The military doctor shook her head. "Bert said he was too busy with Lillian to show up.  Mother slapped him upside the head, and Lord Quetzal Travers chuckled. It was really strange; Lord Travers made some remark about Bert being that busy one day.  Bert lost it on him." Janet chuckled ruefully. "I know now that I was being left out of the loop on something although I still have no idea what that something was."

"How did she die?"

"There were complications while she was in labor. My little brother came out of the womb with the cord around his neck. The midwife kept telling all of us to get out of Mother's room. Mother said she needed to keep pushing and the midwife agreed. Then she said she saw a foot. She was really worried when she said that-"

"You know what that means now," Cassie interrupted.

"Yes, I do.  At the age of seven, however, I only knew that something was terribly wrong. Mother kept saying that she wanted a natural birth but the midwife was on the phone with a doctor and ignoring Mother's wishes. Bert and I just held baby Robinson, who had been placed in our care the moment that his cord was cut.  There was Death hanging in that room, not that I understood that then."

She paused to take a moment to breathe so Cassie asked her something she'd started to wonder. "What happened to your little brother, Robinson?"

"They took Robbie away when Mother started convulsing. She was having seizures as I followed him.  Bert was torn between staying with Mother and following me. He chose to stay. I chose to go and I was there when Father came home. He was covered in blood some of it was his, I suppose.  He saw my nanny, Tallinn, carrying Robbie and he lost his temper. As I recall, he started to scream at Tallinn.  He wanted to know why his wife wasn't nursing his son; Tallinn told him what was going on in the master bedroom. He grabbed Robbie and…they would later rule that it was crib death despite the fact that Robbie wasn't in a crib. Tallinn died under suspicious circumstances the day before my mother and brothers' funerals."

"Your father-the guy whose funeral we're going to-killed your baby brother?  And the nanny that was there that night?" Cassie looked confused. "But why didn't he kill you? You saw it happen."

"I was hiding behind the curtain. I was seven years old and my mother was dying in the room above me.  Would anyone have believed me even if he had realized I was there?"

"They wouldn't have, would they?" Cassie was deep in thought. "Your mother was giving birth to twins though.  What happened to other one?"

"A doctor came and tried to operate.  No one realized that she was highly allergic to the anesthetic that he gave her as he put her under.  Not only did she never come out of it, but the other twin was stillborn anyway."

The brunette whistled softly. "Ouch. No wonder you fit into Grandma's family so well. Your biological family was part of a fucking soap opera."

"Cassandra! Watch your mouth!"

"Yes, Mom." Then she cocked her head. "What happened to Bert?"

"I wrote him a bunch of times. However, they always came back unopened and one day my last one came back marked 'recipient deceased.'"

"Great," Cassie rolled her eyes, "I finally get a chance of getting more family-not that you're not great, Mom-and they're all dead!"

"It's rather sad, isn't it?" Janet remarked quietly.

**You ain't the only one who feels like this world left you far behind **

**I don't know why you gotta be angry all the time **

Lorne, who was currently filling in for Mr. Michel on front desk duty, stared at the woman and her daughter. 

The woman had a conflicted aura. She didn't want to be at the funeral of the one who had brought so much pain into her life.  But neither did she want to miss out on the opportunity to visit the rest of her family's graves.  She kept wishing that death hadn't called her family one by one and yet she considered her aunt's family to be more her family than the one death had taken.

Her daughter was equally confusing. She had never heard of this man before his death.  Now that she had, however, she wished that he were still alive so that she could kill him.  And because she was humming under her breath, he knew that she thought he was an alien. The next thought made his jaw drop. She thought he was an alien because she was one too.

Just out of curiosity and because he had the feeling that the woman was more than she appeared as well, he asked, "Would you please sing?"

"Excuse me? Are we talking _doe a dear a female deer re a drop of golden sun mi a name I call myself_ etcetera here or an actual song?" Janet demanded of the green guy that she wondered was an alien or just on his way to a sci-fi convention.

Instead, Lorne nodded to himself. "You know, sweet cheeks, not everything is as it seems." He tossed the keys to their rooms into the air.

Cassie caught hers with a scowl. "What's my room number?"

"You're in 103 and your mom's in 105, but the rooms won't be ready for a while.  You might want to try room 104 though. I understand that they have a PS2 in there.  Tell the little blonde that Lorne sent you."

"What's so special about that room?" Cassie questioned. "Well, besides the PS2."

"The people inside have answers that your mom's wanted for a very long time," Lorne answered quietly.

**Twenty years have come and went since I walked out of your door **

**I never quite made it back to the one I was before **

**And God it hurts me to think of you **

Cassie and Janet shared nervous looks over the sign gracing the door to room 104.

"Danger: Peace talks have been known to get violent," Janet read. "Proceed at your own risk."

"So are we risking it?" Cassie looked thoughtful.

"We might as well.  God knows we don't have anything else to do until our rooms are ready."

Immediately after Janet knocked, a petite blonde girl answered. "I'm Buffy Summers.  Since the adults are the ones behaving like children, it falls to me to ask what your names are and why you're here."

"Lorne sent us," Cassie told her quietly, motioning the girl out into the hallway. After the other teen had stepped out of the room and closed the door, she smiled.  "I'm Cassie Frasier and this is my mother, Doctor Frasier.  Lorne said that there were answers to my mother's questions inside that room."

"All that's in there are two brothers who hate each other, a half-sister that's caught in the middle, and tension major.  Trust me, Giles is so stressed because Jack's here that I'm beginning to hope that I'm going to close my eyes and when I open them again, Lord Jonathon Giles isn't dead and I'm in my comfy bed at home preparing to sneak out instead of at this funeral. I'm babbling, aren't I?" 

"A little," Cassie agreed.  Her mother had lost the conversation shortly after Buffy had started to talk. 

"I didn't understand anything you said," Janet volunteered.

"Basically, my mother's half-brother is in there fighting with his half-brother.  Of course, his half-brother just so happens to be my mentor and former sort of _friend_ of my mother's. So my mom is playing referee between her brother, Jack, and Rupert Giles."

Janet's mouth fell open.  "Rupert Giles has been dead since I was eight or nine years old."

"Like hell he has." The Slayer automatically slipped into a modified fighting stance.  "My mentor is not dead although his mother and father are.  He has no idea on his sister and he's beginning to wish his older brother was, Doctor Frasier."

Janet deflated. "Oh, my Rupert Giles didn't have a brother.  Call me Janet, dear.  We are discussing my brother and your mentor after all."

Before Buffy could say what was on the tip of her tongue, Xander poked his head out the door. "What's going on, Buffster? You've been out here so long that everyone's worried."

"I'm fine, Xand." She pasted on a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "Go back inside while I deal with this, k?"

"When will you be back?"

"I need to continue this discussion but I should be done within forty-five or so."

The moment the young man had closed the door again, a hotel employee bustled over.  "Your rooms are ready, ma'am.  We're sorry for any inconvenience this could have caused."

"Thank you," Janet told him.  Turning back to Buffy, she asked, "Do you want to continue this in our rooms?"

"Sure. Just let me inform them."

After that was done, the three found themselves settled on a queen-sized bed in Cassie's hotel room. 

"You said that Rupert Giles was your brother.  You were seven years old when Andrea died, weren't you?"  Buffy's nerves had frayed so considerably that she had decided that tact didn't need to figure into her words.

"Did he tell you that?" Janet's voice shook as she asked the question.

"Answer the question first."

"Yes. Yes, I was."

"Yeah, Giles told me that on the flight here.  For some odd reason, none of us could sleep on the plane."

"Funny," Cassie broke the silence. "Neither could we. And we also discussed the Giles family to pass the time.  Did you know that Lord Jonathon killed his newborn son and his children's nanny?"

"It doesn't surprise me." Buffy took a deep breath. "Why did you think that Giles was dead?"

"Because I got a letter back marked 'recipient deceased.'"  Janet didn't think the pain she'd felt at seeing those words, especially once she found out what they meant, would ever completely fade.

"There you go," the eighteen year old nodded. "I wouldn't be surprised if Lord Jonathon had marked it that way himself."

"You would have believed that even if we hadn't told you that he murdered his son.  Why is that?" Cassie asked the older teen.

"It doesn't knock me for a loop because it took death for his sons to come back here.  Giles had gone well over twenty years without speaking to his father; I know it was close to that for Jack as well."

"And I haven't spoken to him since I was seven years old. That's been over twenty years."

"He died a lonely old man," Cassie observed. "I'm not saying he didn't deserve it, but it had to have been hell on him.  Knowing he was dying and his legacy, his children, hated him."

"Two of the surviving three didn't even keep his name," Buffy continued. "But none of that would have honestly mattered.  One of them had kept the family name and had finally ended up in the family business.  I think what would have really bothered him is when Giles 'disgraced' the family honor not that long ago."

"How could he disgrace the family honor worse than Daddy Dearest ever managed to?" Janet asked cynicism and sarcasm thick in her voice.

"He failed a test.  I passed the test because of that.  I lived because he failed.  My mother lived because of that.  And so he disgraced the Giles name."

A grim smile graced Janet's lips.  "Tell me how I can meet my brother again."  Then she paused.  "Didn't you say something about Bert having a brother?"

"Half-brother," Buffy corrected.  "You wouldn't have known about it since you were too young to understand."

"Well, what's this mystery uncle's name?" Cassie demanded.

"Jack. Jack O'Neill," the blonde told her with a mischievous grin.  "Since he's my mother's half-brother even though she's no relation to Giles, do you know if that makes us cousins?"

**For the light in your eyes was gone and sometimes **

**I don't know why this old world can't leave well enough alone **

Cassie considered it for a moment.  "I know someone named Jack O'Neill.  He works with Mom.  It would be far too coincidental if he's suddenly related to us, right?"

"That's right," was the chorused answer to her query. 

But then Buffy's eyes narrowed. "Even if he isn't, I don't believe in coincidence.  Janet, did your adopted mother know that your Jack was going to be working at the same place you were?"

"I mentioned it to her when I first met him.  She was nervous about it, I remember that.  She asked if I could transfer to another base and I told her that I had no wish to do any such thing.  My adopted father told her that perhaps it was for the best.  He said that I needed to find out everything.  But it was Thanksgiving and I was listening at the door so I know he never meant for me to hear that."  She frowned as she concentrated on elusive remnants of that time.   "She accused him of orchestrating it and he laughed.  He said that the Council had wanted us to meet even earlier and it was only the luck of the dice that we were meeting so late in the game."

"Damn it!" Buffy rarely swore but she felt the situation warranted it.  "Damn the Council to the worst of the Hell dimensions!"

"What's the Council?" Janet asked quickly. She'd heard of it on and off since her earliest recollections but she had no idea what the Council was or what it did.

"You're a product of two prominent Watcher families and you have _no_ idea what the Watcher's Council does or even what it is?" The question was breathed out in an incredulous voice. "That's wiggy."

"Now we know what the Council is," Cassie noted dryly, "but what does it do?"

"It guides the Slayer." Buffy stared into the distance.  "She's the one girl in the entire world who has the necessary abilities to fight the things that go bump in the night.  When one dies, another is called. Not before or after.  She is assigned an active Watcher and that person helps research the demons that she fights and trains her to fight all sorts of nasties. After all, the first things that roamed this earth were demons.  Something had to control the leftovers of the demon exodus, the part demons that are left, and the vampires that think of you as happy meals on legs."

"And you're telling me that a girl does that?" Janet snorted. "Honey, demons don't exist."

"Sure they do." Buffy's eyes sparked cold fire. "What the hell do you think Lorne is?  He reads auras when people sing or hum.  There's a fancy term for it; I think it's something like agnostic demon. Not that I'm positive, but the fact remains that he's a demon.  The feeling dances along my skin like nobody's business.  Don't tell me that demons don't exist or that vampires don't roam the streets killing people for their blood.  Don't tell me that I didn't drown because of a vampire called the Master.  Yeah, Xand revived me but the cold hard truth is that I did die. I died not that long after my sixteenth birthday, and I wouldn't be here if it weren't for a quirk of fate." She looked straight at both of them then.  "Andrea Giles's brother, Merrick, was my Watcher when I was first called as the Vampire Slayer.  After he died, Giles became my Watcher.  After the Council fired Giles, Wesley was my Watcher until I quit the Council myself."

"You expect us to believe that?" Janet asked in disbelief. "Demons can't exist; that would be like saying magic also exists."

"It does exist." Buffy said it so blandly that Cassie was convinced.

"Mom, think about all you've seen in your job.  Can you honestly tell me that demons are all that strange?"

"Well, when you put it that way…I know Teal'c.  Why should I doubt the existence of _demons_?"

 "Teal'c?" the Slayer queried. "If he's not a demon, what is he?"

 Cassie looked at her mother and then back to the petite warrior in front of her.  "He's a type of alien called a Jaffa. That can't leave this room anymore than we'll tell about the Council and you being the Slayer.  During the early part of the 21st century, a ring was found.  Today, the military calls it a Stargate because the ancients called it that due to the fact-"

"It's a portal to other planets.  I know what the Jaffa are, Cassie." Buffy's voice sounded strained.  "They're in some of the obscure texts that we researched when we couldn't find the Codex."

"I'm not even going to pretend I understand that." Janet shook her head.

"I guess the Council was right," Buffy mused. "Teal'c is in the other room which almost guarantees that my Uncle Jack is also your coworker Jack."

"I guess we better make my entrance back into the Giles family good then." Janet smirked and Buffy was struck by how much like Ripper she looked.

"Oh yeah," both girls agreed.

**The reasons that I can't stay don't have a thing to do with being in love **

"That was one long conversation you had, Buffy." Giles cleaned his glasses as he spoke.

"Yeah, Buffster," Xander grinned. "I think we're all wondering who you were making with smoochies with."

Buffy laughed despite herself. Contrary to what she'd originally told Xander, she'd spent more than four hours across the hall from where the peace talks were being held.  In that time the sign had been switched again, she noted with amusement.  Now it read 'It's a good thing this already a funeral. Peace talks can be deadly.'  "I wasn't making with the smoochies, Xand. I was talking with some other guests and I guess time just slipped away."

"You know that most of these people work where I used to, correct?" Giles hissed.

"Chill, would you? Trust me when I say these two most definitely don't. Now stop worrying about that.  I'm hungry. Can we go out to dinner?"

Mary O'Neill could see that the girl was hiding something, every woman in the room could.  But she had to admire the young woman's gumption.  She nodded to herself as she finally understood why her long absent daughter had always written that she'd love her granddaughter. The eighteen year old was a spitfire just like the rest of the family and nothing like Joyce's good for nothing husband.

**And I understand that lovin' a man shouldn't have to be this rough **

**You ain't the only one who feels like this world left you far behind **

The next day, the cemetery was busy and bustling as Lord Jonathon Giles was laid to rest. His former colleagues were present, his family showed up, and even his children's late former nanny's husband put in an appearance.  His minister had set the service up so that he gave only a short sermon before turning it over to the attendees to share a facet of Jonathon Giles.

His younger sister went up first.  Elizabeth Giles-Wyndham was the result of good breeding and the very image of propriety.  "My brother was quite a character when we were growing up.  As the younger child and a daughter to boot, I wasn't allowed to train to follow in our father's footsteps.  Every night when he was supposed to be studying Latin or obscure languages, Jonathon would sneak into my room and force me to study the languages along with him.  He'd make it a game. He wouldn't leave my room unless I studied with him and the longer we studied without someone catching us, the more candy he'd give me."

She smiled then at those memories of a big brother who had cared about his only sister.  "I wasn't so close to him when we grew up as both time and distance limited our contact.  I can only be grateful that he's with his beloved Andrea now."  With those words, she gently sprinkled her handful of dirt on the gleaming black casket in the ground.

Andrea's older sister, Clarita Haynes, went next. "I was in my last year of schooling when Andrea and Jonathon first met.  I remember that he was all she talked about.  It seemed like an endless stream of conversation for her that she never tired of. She always talked of how he was the perfect gentleman.  He was my age, of course, and so I'd met him at more of the Council functions than she had.  I knew him as a bully and one of Quetzal Travers's cronies. She saw him as a saint."  Clarita closed her eyes. "To this day, I'm not certain which is closer to what he truly was inside."

She flung her dirt at the casket with the fervent wish that there were rocks in the handful of soil.

Quentin Travers was the next to go and he glared at Clarita as they passed each other. As the Head of the Watcher's Council waxed poetically about his late father's best friend, the Slayer leaned over to said best friend's son.  "Giles, do you think he could stop before the BS level gets any deeper in here?"

"It's Quentin, Buffy.  Do you honestly expect anything else from him?"

"He has a point, dear." Joyce pointed out.  "And remember that your father's cousin, Edna, is next and then it's your turn, Giles."

"Does that mean that I can't fall asleep?"

Buffy stifled a snicker at the whine in her Watcher's voice although Xander wasn't nearly as nice.  He grinned at Giles before laughing and asking, "Does this mean Giles is no longer Mr. Stuffy from the land of Tweed?"

"Oh, do shut up."

In the row in front of them, Teal'c was looking as confused as he ever got.  "I thought that funerals were events that commanded sorrow and respect?"

"You've heard about Jonathon, Teal'c." Jack rolled his eyes. "Do you really think that any of us truly respect him?"

Buffy leaned forward about the time Teal'c started to respond. "Be quiet, would you? It's Giles's turn to talk."

At the makeshift podium next to the grave, Giles smirked wryly.  "Most of you share my father's opinion that I am and always have been a good-for-nothing scoundrel. What you most likely don't know is that the only reason I ever rebelled in the first place was because of him.  I was going through the attic during my sixteenth summer to find a book that had certain-ahem, chants-in it.  Instead, I found a photograph album of my father with a woman and later a child that I'd never heard of.  I confronted him about it and found out the woman was his first wife and the boy was his son that was three years older than me."

Jack's mouth was almost hanging open as Giles continued.  "I stopped following in his shoes that day.  It would be years before I even contemplated going into the family business and I only did that because Quentin and Quetzal threatened me. Or rather, they threatened Jack and my younger sister, Janet.  That was why I accepted a job as the curator of the London Museum."

Jack leaned back to look at his niece. "I didn't realize that he actually had a brain. I guess I just figured that he was some sort fighter from that fight we were in."

Buffy smiled. "That's nice. Could you shut up so that I can listen to what he's saying?"

"I don't regret being forced down a career path now.  I've met a group of extraordinary young people that I consider to be my children. I've had the pleasure of knowing strong women who know about the things that go bump in the night-as my daughter, Buffy, would say- and I've come to realize that my father did me a favor.  I wouldn't be the person I am today if it weren't for his betrayal of Mary and Jack O'Neill.  Yes, I still can't stand the bastard, but he did do a couple of things right in his life.  He had at least two children survive to adulthood and I know that his eldest son is a man I'm proud to call brother."

That said, Giles hurled his handful into his father's grave.  For some reason, it made a loud pinging noise.  In her seat, Clarita applauded and looked heavenward. Then she mouthed, "Why couldn't I have the handful with rocks?"

Mary O'Neill strode up to the podium. "I knew Jonathon Giles for two years.  We were married for about eighteen months of that.  Of course, Jack came along about five months into our marriage."   Several shocked gasps were heard following this declaration.  "He never told his parents about our relationship or his son.  He left me when our son was barely a year old.  From that day forward, our son was only _my _son.  Jack didn't meet his biological father until he was twenty-two years old.  Don't automatically assume that Lord Jonathon was a good man because you'd be sadly mistaken.  A good man doesn't beat the hell out of the woman he forced into marriage.  A good man doesn't leave that woman because she wants a career.  And a good man doesn't force himself on that woman the first night they met."

With those words, she kicked dirt into the grave of the man she had once hated. Then she strode back to her seat among a wildfire of stunned whispers. 

"I didn't find out that Michael O'Neill wasn't my biological father until I turned fifteen years old." The abrupt start of Jack's speech threw everyone off balance.  "I didn't find out that I had two half siblings other than the one I was raised with until two days ago.  And yet, I met my biological father when I was briefly stationed here when I was twenty-two.  He never mentioned either of my other siblings." Jack paused, wondering if he should say what he wanted to. "He did, however, mention that even though I was only a year old, I disappointed him.  I didn't look enough like his family, my words had that 'awful' American accent, and I was, over all, too plebeian for his tastes.  The way he put it, it was my own damn fault that he left my mother."

He threw his dirt onto the casket with several distinct pings and then spit.  "I can't say that I feel all that sorry that he's dead.  After all, he wasn't that great of a father to me; he wasn't even that great of a stranger."

In her seat, Clarita whimpered. Then she muttered, "Everyone but me gets the rocks. I want rocks!"

Every member of the Watcher's Council in attendance sat up straighter as a petite blonde claimed the podium.  It didn't take a genius to recognize the only Slayer to ever resign from the Council.  She grinned sadistically at those that she had seen before. "Now some of you know me; some don't.  For those of you in the minority, I'm Buffy Summers.  Giles considers me to be one of his daughters and I consider him to be my father.  Therefore, I'm talking as his daughter.  Yes, I've seen the faces of his past.  I know of the evil he committed, but he redeemed himself. The evil that Jonathon Giles caused was the type people can never redeem themselves from.  He ignored his children, he killed at least two people—" she paused at the gasps before continuing, "but that is not my story to tell.  I suppose that I should get down to the point, shouldn't I?"

She hurled her handful of dirt as fast as she could.  "You've heard of the doting brother, the abusive husband, the overgrown bully, the bastard who saw children as nothing more than a commodity to be used as he wished, and now I called him a murderer.  Now that all these various facets of his personalities have confused you, I think that I will shock the hell of you. See, I was basically sent out here to introduce people."

Teal'c raised an eyebrow as a familiar figure skipped out to the podium from one of the mausoleums.  She was quite obviously hyper as she joined the older girl and waved. "Hi, I'm Cassie Frasier. Did you know that Jonathon Giles killed his newborn son as his seven year old daughter watched from behind a curtain?  I found out as my mom and I were on the flight here. After all—"

"After all," Janet interrupted smoothly, "I was his daughter. And I just discovered that I have been using my older half-brother as a pincushion." By this point both Giles and Jack were gaping at each other in disbelief.  "What we're trying to figure out is how my daughter, Cassie, and Buffy, who is Jack's half-sister on his mother's side's daughter, are related."

"Yeah," Buffy agreed. "Does that make us cousins, half-cousins, or step half-cousins?  And then are we considered cousins because I'm Cassie's mother's brother's surrogate daughter? How exactly does that work?"

"And then there's the fact that I'm adopted," Cassie continued. "That brings a whole other side to the whole conundrum." The two girls exchanged grins while contemplating what their audience would say if they knew that Cassie was an alien.

"We wouldn't have half of this problem if my father hadn't sent me away when my mother died." Janet surveyed the crowd with a dispassionate eye.  "My mother's illegitimate sister raised me in the type of loving home that Jonathon Giles would have been incapable of producing. That doesn't mean that I was always fine about how I was treated. I felt abandoned for a very long time.  I agree with Mrs. O'Neill.  There's no way that Jonathon Giles was a good man."

Both Frasier females kicked the dirt into the grave. Cassie then grabbed a nearby boulder and looked at Buffy for help. With the other girl helping, the boulder was heaved onto the casket with ease. 

Clarita whined as the casket made a creaking sound.  The teenage girls snickered at the older woman who was dressed so very conservatively pouting over the fact that she didn't get to throw rocks onto the casket and into the open grave.

As the three females sat down, the minister closed the funeral.  Although he tried to paint the deceased in a good light, the speeches that had been made had irreparably damaged that effort.

**I don't know why you gotta be angry all the time **

In light of the revelations, Cassie insisted on the older teens coming home with them.  Oz begged off on the excuse that his band had gigs. Willow was convinced to go to Colorado by Sam.  The computer hacker and novice witch had found a kindred spirit in the astrophysicist.

Jack and Xander had been exchanging strange jokes ever since Giles and Jack had patched things up.  Buffy's mouth quirked at the thought of that 'reunion' of sorts.  If it had been two girls, it would have been highly emotional. 

As it was, Jack had shrugged and asked if all was forgiven.

Giles had smirked and replied that, "I said I was proud to call you brother, didn't I?"

The girls watching the scene didn't understand the male bonding type scene.  Oz and Xander had just shrugged. Xander had looked at the girls. "Glad they made up and aren't mad at each other for their father's mistakes."

"Wait," Cassie had said, holding up a hand. "Where did you get that from?"

"That was what they were just doing," was Xander's reply.

The girls had sighed in unison. "Men."

Buffy had automatically gone along with the plan to go to Colorado.  She probably would have even if her father figure and her uncle _hadn't _patched things up.  She had decided that Cassie was a girl she was proud to have related to her in some capacity, even if they hadn't figured out just _how _they were related.

That was why three of the Sunnydale teens were seated at a picnic table in Janet's backyard.  they were listening to Cassie's babble about how they had to remember that even though General Hammond was in charge of a whole base, they shouldn't feel threatened or be in awe of him.  He was a teddy bear under all his gruffness, she explained to them.

Or at least, Buffy thought she was explaining that to them.  She had been tuning her relative out since her uncle, Daniel, Sam, and Teal'c had entered the backyard with Janet and General Hammond.

The general nodded to the three unfamiliar teenagers. "So you're friends with Cassie, are you?  Did you meet at school?"

Jack snickered as his nieces exchanged glances. Cassie spoke up first. "Actually, sir, we met at a funeral."

"Yeah, who knew that one could meet so many relations at a funeral for a guy you never heard of before his death, much less actually met?" Buffy asked with a wicked grin.  This caused her friends and uncle to laugh.

General Hammond blinked. "Excuse me?"

"Sit down; this will take a while." Xander pointed to the wicker chair next to the picnic table.

A/N: Well, I hope you had fun reading. Leave a review on your way out telling me what you think of my first attempt on writing a Stargate/Buffy crossover that wasn't a complete AU. Hope you liked it, Tassos.


	2. Posters my teacher gave me

_Snippet Title: Posters my teacher gave me_

_Author: Lady Maria (or Maria, depending on the site)_

_Rating: R but as this is only for innuendo, I'm not changing the story rating.  If you want, skip the snippet because the content isn't crucial to the rest of the series._

_Series: The Funeral Series_

_Disclaimer: The poster's content doesn't belong to me, but I do own the poster itself. I mean it. It's hanging up on my bathroom wall.  I also don't own Stargate SG-1 or Buffy the Vampire Slayer._

_Author's Notes: This will become a full fledged series. If you wish to be informed of new stories in the series, leave your email in a review or email me with your request.  In the next story, there will be a family tree. We've drawn it up but we haven't typed it yet. This was my muse's idea after going to the bathroom. Happy Fourth of July even if I am posting this at 1 in the morning on July 5th.  Please pity me; my muses are playing with Mr. Potato Heads and Fashion Polly Pockets._

_Review please.  Please, please review._

"My English teacher gave me a gift." Cassie stared mournfully at the bed where the gift was spread out.

"It's a poster," Buffy pointed out. "What's wrong with a poster?"

"Look at it!" she cried.

The blonde considered the poster for a moment and then spoke.  "From what you told me about Mrs. Yarrow, I would never have thought that she was one for kinkiness."

"What do you mean? This is an 'Achieve your dreams, remember your ABCs' poster."  Cassie blinked in confusion.

"It's also the dirtiest poster on earth.  Actually, it's probably the dirtiest poster in the universe. Yes, I'm including the ones underneath Xander's bed."

Cassie frowned in thought and read the poster again.

**_A_**_void negative sources, people, places, things, and habits._

**_B_**_elieve in yourself_

**_C_**_onsider things from every angle_

**_D_**_on't give up and don't give in_

**_E_**_njoy life today, yesterday is gone and tomorrow may never come_

**_F_**_amily and friends are hidden treasures, seek them and enjoy their riches_

**_G_**_ive more than you planned to_

**_H_**_ang on to your dreams_

**_I_**_gnore those who try to discourage you_

**_J_**_ust do it_

**_K_**_eep trying no matter how hard it seems, it will get easier_

**_L_**_ove yourself first and most_

**_M_**_ake it happen_

**_N_**_ever lie, cheat, or steal, always strike a fair deal_

**_O_**_pen your eyes and see things as they really are_

**_P_**_ractice makes perfect_

**_Q_**_uitters never win and winners never quit_

**_R_**_ead, study, and learn about everything important in your life_

**_S_**_top procrastinating_

**_T_**_ake control of your own destiny_

**_U_**_nderstand yourself in order to better understand others_

**_V_**_isualize it_

**_W_**_ant it more than anything_

**_X_**_cellerate your efforts_

**_Y_**_ou are unique of all God's creations nothing can replace you_

**_Z_**_ero in on your target_

"I don't get where you're coming from, Buffy."

"And you're a part of our family. You are so sad because I **know** from listening to Uncle Jack that he would have seen this or anything like it within five seconds. Why don't we take another look at the poster, this time with comments?" She let her eyes skim the poster. "Cassie, read the first one."

"_Avoid negative sources, people, places, things, and habits._ And your point is…?"

"It pretty much says that you aren't allowed to read any books, read magazines, see your family, go to school, go home, play with stakes, have sex, or even be in your brain."

"Did you just call me a Goa'uld?"

"No, idiot." Buffy rolled her eyes. "You call me a blonde? Read B."

"_Believe in yourself_," Cassie read out loud.

"Believe in myself," Buffy echoed. "Oh, I believe in myself.  I even believe in my ability to make my man roar."

Cassie opened her mouth and then closed it with an audible click. "I think I get it.  But that was a little too much information."

"That's the name of the game, don't you know?" Buffy laughed at the expression on her cousin's face. "Now give me the poster; it's my turn to read one."

"Hey, does that mean it's my turn to make a comment?"

"No shit, Sherlock." Buffy paused. "Unless you have a ghost you didn't tell me about.  Do you?"

"No, but I have a pet worm named Ralph that Uncle Jack gave me. It talks in Sumerian."

There was a long silence. "Let's just get back to the subject."

"What was the subject?"

"_Consider things from every angle_," Buffy spoke up, ignoring Cassie's question.

"Oh, you mean like Uncle Daniel's ass."

"Yeah, if you tilt your head to 180 degrees it looks like Jimmy Wayne's butt."

Jack came in without knocking at that point.  Daniel was in tow and looking every bit as confused as Jack was mad.  "Who can I kill for talking about Daniel's butt and why were they? It's mine!"

"Oh look, he's being possessive," Buffy cooed. "Isn't that the cutest thing? I want a guy who will kill for me…wait, I've had those. Never mind, I just want one who's possessive without bloodshed. If that's possible, of course."

"Explanations," Jack growled. Daniel was still confused but trying to calm him down anyway.

"Well, we're making sick and twisted comments," Cassie explained.  "As an end of the year present to her favorite student, my English teacher gave me this uplifting poster.  We're on our way to turning it into porno.  That's why we made a comment on Uncle Daniel's ass. Don't worry; he's practically part of the family so we wouldn't dream of touching him."

"Great," Jack muttered just as Daniel went, "Can we join in?"

Buffy and Cassie chuckled in unison before Cassie said, "Of course you can."

"We're on letter D," Buffy told them.  "Here it is. _Don't give up and don't give in."_

"Well, I never give up." Daniel waggled his eyebrows.

"But you always give in," Jack stated slyly.

"That's not for public information," Daniel yelped and slapped his mate.

Both females snickered at Jack's "Owww that hurt."

They both lost it when Daniel went, "Do you want me to kiss it and make it feel better?"

"What am I, three?" Jack screamed.

Janet poked her head in the door. "Dare I ask?"

"Find a seat, Mom and just go with the flow. Please remember that even though I'm fifteen, you shouldn't ground me for this." She glared at the squabbling couple.  "Kids, sit down because it's time to continue."

Buffy glanced at the poster. "_Enjoy life today, yesterday is gone and tomorrow may never come_."

"See Mom, Mrs. Yarrow agrees with me." Cassie beamed angelically at her mother.  "I should have sex right now!"

Then she snickered when her uncle stepped in front of Daniel.  "Don't even think about it."

"He's right, young lady," Janet snapped. "You are not having sex especially with a family member!"

"Oh, please," Buffy sighed, "she's not into incest. Although, are you really a virgin, Cass?"

"I plead the fifth on that, thank you very much," the girl in question responded stiffly.

"Cassandra Marianna Frasier!" her mother belted out at the top of her lungs in that 'you are in so much trouble' tone of voice.

"Ooo, what'd ya do, Cass?" Xander asked as he came into her bedroom.  He'd just come back from the store and Willow was tagging along behind him.

"Yes," Joyce and Giles walked in behind him.  Giles was the one talking. "What did you do, Cassie?"

"We're making an inspirational poster into porn," Buffy told them.  "Pull up a seat somewhere and feel free join."

"It's my turn to read," Cassie said. "_Family and friends are hidden treasures, seek them and enjoy their riches_."

"Well," Xander said slowly, "they're here and so I guess we should enjoy their riches.  Can I have twenty bucks?"

There was a chorus of 'no,' 'hell no,' and 'not in your lifetime, bucko' as well Cassie's "I can give you a worm that speaks Sumerian."

Xander shifted.  "Moving on from worms that speak, what's the next one?"

"G is _Give more than you planned to_," Cassie told them with a slight sneer.

"I always do," Jack remarked with a mischievous smirk.

"No, ya don't," Daniel snarked back.

"While Jack gapes at Daniel, we'll move on." Buffy rolled her eyes. "Oh, the wonders of love."

"Is that W?" Xander asked inquisitively.

"No, Xander," Cassie said patiently.  Giles smothered snicker. "W doesn't fall after G."

"Letters fall?" He was more confused than ever. This could actually have something to do with the fact that he hadn't had all that much sleep and **way** too much coffee.

"Never mind," Buffy shrugged. "H is next and that would be _Hang on to your dreams_."

"I had this one dream about Buffy in this skimpy chain mail underwear working at a strip club—" Xander was interrupted mid sentence.

"Okay," Cassie clapped her hands together. "Unless anyone else has dreams that reveal a little too much information, let's move on."

"Please," Buffy muttered.  "I really didn't need to hear that dream."

Giles raised his hand. "I had a dream!"

"If it has to do with my mother and whip cream, don't continue that train of thought," Buffy quickly cut him off.

Giles remained suspiciously quiet.

Cassie hurriedly moved onto the next letter.  "_Ignore those who try to discourage you_."

"See, you ignore those that discourage you! That letter fits you perfectly," Daniel screeched.

"No, I don't."

"Yes, you do. Every time I talk about scientific theories about why we're attracted to each other, you ignore me." Daniel pouted.

"That's because we're typically in the middle of sex!" Jack tried to reason with him.

"But I'm telling you that human attraction can be traced to—"

"I can't hear you," Jack sing-songed. "Talk to the hand, because the face ain't home, leave a message at the tone. _Beeepppp_!"

"Hello, Jack. This is Daniel." He leaned in next to Jack's ear and shouted, "You do too ignore me!"

"Ouch, I have hearing loss." Jack shielded his ear from his partner while glaring at said partner.

"Okay, the next one applies to the bisexuals who are acting like three year olds." Buffy glared at the two in question and then turned her gaze on Xander who was starting to open his mouth. "Do. Not. Say. A. Thing."

Cassie read the sentence for J.  "_Just do it_."

"Just do it?" Willow snickered.  She'd been content sitting back and listening to everyone else but now she had to speak up.  "Now that gives me ideas…"

"Me too," Jack said hurriedly. "Talk to all of you later.  Janet, I'm locking your garage.  Yes, we'll clean up after ourselves.  Come on, Danny."

"Bye." Daniel managed to wave before they left the room.

The room's occupants dissolved into hysterics.  Once they calmed down again, about fifteen minutes later, Giles gave a very Ripper-like smirk.  "_Just do it_ also gives me ideas.  Joyce, now that your brother's left the room, why don't we go back to our guest room?"

"No," Buffy bellowed.

Cassie was also blushing but she managed to further embarrass her cousin.  "You know, O kind of applies here."

"You're going out of order here," Xander noted.

"Just this once," Cassie shrugged. "_Open your eyes and see things as they really are_. That applies to you, cousin dearest." 

The Slayer curled up in a ball next to Cassie's bed and started to rock. Her knees were to her chest with her arms wrapped around them.  As she rocked back and forth, she chanted, "I was brought by the stork. I was brought by the stork because my MOTHER DOES NOT HAVE SEX.  My mother and my Watcher do not have sex. EVER."

Giles just couldn't resist.  "Actually, there was this one time when we—"

"My car," Janet yelped. She'd just remembered that Jack and Daniel had departed for the garage where her nice, new convertible was.  Okay, it was for Cassie when she got her license and it was about five years old…but still.  She didn't want to give her daughter a car that had been **pollinated**. The other occupants of the room watched in disbelief as the normally collected doctor rushed out of the room.

The next thing they heard was, "I'm blind! I'm blind.  I did not see my brother going at it on—get off the car!"

Cassie's eyes went wide with horror.  "My mom's car isn't in the garage…My car. They're having sex on my car!"

Then their mouths dropped again as Janet's next remark filtered into the room.  "Ooo, nice not-so-little Daniel. You really, really did well for yourself, big brother."

They watched as Jack dragged his youngest sibling in…by the ear no less. He wasn't wearing a shirt and his pants were half done—which caused both his nieces to snicker—but he was still twisting his sister's ear as he shoved her in front of him.

"Mine to look at," he growled. "Not yours, not your daughter's, mine!  Could you get this through your heads?"

"Does this mean that you don't want your family checking out your mate?" Buffy asked with a quick smile that vanished before her uncle glared at her.  After his growl, she pouted. "But that takes all the fun out of life."

"Don't try to reason with him," Cassie told her. "He's really acting like a Neanderthal now."

"But I don't get it," Xander said.  "Since I'm not technically related to your family, does that mean I can check him out?"

"No!" Jack bellowed. "Now I'm going to return to Daniel. Got it?"

"Not on the car," Janet returned just as sharply.  "Anywhere other than any of the cars. Got it?"

"Fine."

As soon as Jack left, Cassie groaned. "I can't believe that they had sex on my car."

"From what I saw, they had sex on your car multiple times." Then both of them colored. "Let's just forget I ever said that."

"Amen." Cassie bit her lip and hoped she'd be able to repress that sentence.

"Moving on," Buffy tried for perky, "it's time for letter K. _Keep trying no matter how hard it seems, it will get easier_."

"Am I the only one slightly grossed out by the images that could bring?"

Willow laughed. "Speak for yourself, Xander. The sentence reminds me of my first time with Oz."

"TMI, TMI!" Xander yelped.

"Yeah, I know that phenomenon," Buffy agreed. "Angel took four times to reach 'bliss.'  Honestly, he wasn't even that great."

Joyce and Giles choked.

"Hey, you know what they say," Buffy said with an evil grin.  "Payback's a bitch."

"Young lady," Joyce started to lecture her.

"Can it, Mother. If you're going to discuss your sex life, I can cuss **and** discuss my sex life." She smiled innocently. "Of course, everyone knows that I'm so very pure and I've only had one lover."

Cassie snickered.  She knew better. Buffy leveled a glare at her that would have killed the Devil at twenty feet.  But it only widened Cassie's grin further.

"And what was the wonderful sex god like?"

"Didn't I just say that Angel sucked?" Buffy dodged the question.  "L is _Love yourself first and most_."

Cassie blinked.  "Wait, Mrs. Yarrow is **giving** us permission to be narcissistic? Isn't vanity like one of the deadly sins or something?"

"Not certain," Buffy shrugged.  "But loving your self the most isn't that great in a relationship."

"No kidding," Xander agreed.  "It's part of why it was only physical with Cordy and me."

"Oh, Xander was narcissistic," Cassie cooed. "Poor Cordy."

"Hey, I was not narcissistic…wait, Willow, that does that mean vain, right?"

"Yes, Xand," Willow grinned.  "Okay, this is fun but the game of revelations is stretching my nerves to a breaking point."

"_Make it happen_," Buffy snickered.

"This chick wants us to fake an orgasm?" Willow sneered.  She could pretend to be shy little Willow all she wanted, but she had to get her kicks somewhere.  Therefore, she started laughing when the adults went white.

"Hmm, maybe she wants the guys to force a hard-on," Cassie suggested.

"Maybe it's time for the next line," Giles spoke up quickly.  His glasses couldn't take much more cleaning.

"_Never lie, cheat, or steal, always strike a fair deal_," Willow said drolly.

"But girls lie too," Cassie protested.

"And guys lie even more often," Xander brought up that point.

"Keep harboring your delusions." Buffy laughed at the look on his face.

"_Practice makes perfect_," Willow read one aloud.

Before anyone could even say anything, a moan echoed from the garage.

Joyce blushed. Then she noted, "I guess they took care of us commenting on that."

_"Quitters never win and winners never quit_." Xander read the next line.

"Does that combined with the last line mean that Dom and I can have a sex marathon?" Cassie smirked.

The adults looked horrified. Joyce was the one who spoke up first.  "Absolutely, positively, eight-hundred percent NOT on your life!"

"Damn. Oh, well. It was worth a shot."

"That line still makes me wonder," Buffy noted slowly.

"Okay," Giles said quickly, "_Read, study, and learn about everything important in your life_."

"See," Xander glared at Willow, "Mrs. Yarrow supports my collection under the bed."

Joyce glared at the boy she considered to be her son.  "Mrs. Yarrow supports **what**?"

That was about the moment that Xander started cursing the Fourth of July.  After all, that was the reason why Giles and Joyce had decided to visit in the first place.  "Nothing…"

"Xander, adults get suspicious if you avoid making eye contact," Buffy laughed.  She'd been there, done that, and never wanted to be cornered like that again.

"Okay," Xander muttered while trying to back away from Joyce.

"Here's a new one," Cassie called out.  "_Stop procrastinating_."

"You know, there's a spare bedroom," Janet smirked.  Like Buffy had originally noticed, smirking made her look a lot like Ripper.

"Yes, and Giles is sleeping on the floor."  Joyce cocked an eyebrow at Janet.  Admittedly, she didn't seem to have a problem with the hints of a sexual relationship that sometimes seemed to litter Joyce and Giles's relationship but that wasn't a topic for conversation.

"But why?" Janet grinned innocently.

"My mother doesn't have sex," Buffy kept repeating. "I was brought by the stork.  My mother doesn't have sex.  I was brought by the stork."

"It **does** say that we should stop procrastinating," Giles murmured. "What do you say, Joyce?"

"Let's go discuss it first," Joyce suggested. "If we do or don't, we should at least consider the consequences."

"My mother doesn't have sex.  I was brought by the stork. My mother doesn't have sex. I was brought by the stork. My mother doesn't have sex."

"Bye you two," Janet waved to the last two adults that had remained in the room.

Willow knew she had to get everyone's mind off of what would most likely occur in the spare bedroom.  "Alright, here's_ Take control of your own destiny_."

"Isn't that the truth?" Buffy asked from her place sprawled on the floor.

"Amen," Janet agreed.  "As such, I'm running errands. Does anyone want to come with me?"

"I—" Xander started to say.

Instead, he was cut off by Cassie. "No, we'll stay here. We might go get some ice cream if the couples get to be too much."

"Alright," her mother smiled with relief, "here's some money."

After Janet had left, the teenage girls burst into hysterical laughter.  Xander just blinked. "What just happened?"

"And men rule this country," Willow sighed.  "With those epitomes of mental giants ruling, no wonder America's headed for the pits of hell."

"Literally," Buffy added.  "I figure it's sinking further into hell by two inches every season."

"It's really sinking?" Xander looked puzzled.

"Never mind." Cassie shook her head. "Don't pay attention to us; you'll be hopelessly lost."

"Huh?" Xander couldn't have looked more confused.

"Let's skip to the last letter," Willow spoke up.  "That way, we can go get that ice cream."

"_Zero in on your target_," Xander read for the first and last time.  "What target?"

"Well," Cassie laughed as a masculine scream echoed through the house. "In Jack's case, it was Daniel.  In my case, it was Dom.  In Uncle Giles's case, it was Joyce…"

"Don't say that. Please don't say that," Buffy pleaded.

"My target was Oz or maybe I was his." Willow's smile reached her eyes.

"My target at the moment," Buffy chuckled for the first time in a while, "is a banana split with extra hot fudge sauce, anchovies, and extra cherries."

"Excuse me?"  Cassie's eyebrows shot up to her hairline.

"What?" Buffy just grinned.

"What do you mean, 'What?'?" Xander asked with a green face as the foursome walked out of the house.  "It sounds awful."

As they walked down the driveway, one last moan issued from the house.

"That wasn't a man's moan." Buffy looked green.

"Walk faster," Cassie urged.

Then they kept bickering all the way to the ice cream place.


	3. Good Friends

_Title: Good Friends_

_Series: The Funeral series_

_Author: Maria_

_Disclaimer: I don't own Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Stargate SG-1. They respectively belong to Joss and MGM. I definitely have no claim on them whatsoever._

_Stargate Timeframe: While not exactly adhering to the guidelines, it is set in what would be an AU late 5th season. In this universe, the story is set after Angry all the time and between Posters my teacher gave me and I will remember you. _

_Buffy Timeline: Set in AU 5th season._

_I'm sorry, Kei, but I had had time planned to work on this from the 22nd to the 24th, only to receive the assignment halfway through the 24th. So to even write this, I had to juggle time constraints, school registration, and a house gone crazy during the Coronation rush. I really hope you don't hate this._

_Also, in the universe this is set in, Jack and Giles are half brothers on their father's side. Joyce is Jack's half sister on his mother's side. And Janet is Giles's full sister who was raised away from England after their mother died. This means of course, that she is also Jack's half sister on their father's side._

_Name: Kei_

_What You Want To Read_

_Max Rating: R_

_Type: comedy (and if that isn't a category, action or adventure works fine)_

_One Thing you want to see: set Stargate pre Season Six_

_One Thing You Don't Want To See: NID agents (this includes Kinsey)_

**Feeling one another's joy and sorrow**

**Dreams today may come true tomorrow**

**Good friends**

"I cannot believe that you invited them for the holidays!"

"Jack, they're family." Janet rolled her eyes at Daniel and Sam. Both of them were trying not to laugh at the exchange between the half siblings. Of course, neither of them liked being reminded that they were related.

"Well…" He looked like he was at a loss. "Well, Joyce isn't your sister. What gives you the right to invite her?"

"I invited Giles, Jack. Daniel invited Joyce and the kids."

Daniel suddenly sobered as the colonel turned to glare at him. "You know you're only mad because Giles is coming."

"No, I'm not. I'm not mad at all." Even as he said this, he ground his teeth together and plotted Janet's death…her very painful, very long death. "You're sleeping on the couch tonight."

"No, I'm not." Then Daniel laughed. "You realize that you're only making me sleep on the couch because you're pissed at Giles?"

"I'm not pissed at anyone but you, Danny."

Sam raised an eyebrow and, as she had at other times when they were off duty, said, "You're full of shit, _Colonel_."

"If I'm full of shit, then am I an overflowing toilet?" He sighed. "I am so glad everyone knows me better than I know myself."

Cassie walked into her mother's living room and paused. "I thought the family get-together kicks off _next_ week?" Then she looked at Jack's face and gulped.

"It does," Jack snarled.

Her eyes widened in understanding. _Oops._ "No one told you until today, did they?" Then she went one step further, "So, is Daniel sleeping on the couch tonight?"

"What?" he yelled. "Do I not get to make any of my own decisions or have thoughts of my own?"

Cassie plopped down on the sofa next to Sam. "Uncle Jack, they did this for your own good. You know that you'll enjoy having your other nieces and nephews here. You just need to get over this hatred of Uncle Giles."

Jack closed his eyes and prayed for patience. "I don't hate him; I just remember what happened last Christmas."

Cassie chuckled. She distinctly remembered being frozen while waiting for the outdoor family photos to end. "The picture incident isn't going to happen again; Mom's given her word on that. Besides, Oz has said that Dingoes Ate my Baby have a series of gigs lined up over the vacation."

Jack smiled slightly. "You mean that since he won't be here, the tension between the two redheads won't exist and we won't nearly have a murder on our hands? And besides, since when is Janet's word good for anything."

"Exactly." Janet's voice was firm as she recalled the more vicious fights that had developed the year before. Then she paused. "Hey, I resent that!"

"So who's up for Christmas shopping?" Sam's cheerful question made even the silent Teal'c groan.

"Dear God woman," Jack muttered, "if the family reunion doesn't kill us, you and your shopping will."

"I am not that bad."

"I am positive that you are," Teal'c stated gravely. For this remark, he earned himself a slap from Carter and uproarious laughter from everyone else.

**Close together like they're bookends**

**Feeling what the other one is feeling**

"Please tell me that you're kidding." Buffy sounded slightly exasperated with her best friend.

"At least I'm not bringing a boyfriend home," Willow replied.

"I think we'd rather you brought a girlfriend home after how your relationship with Oz ended. But doesn't she have anyone she could go home to?" While she waited for Willow to respond, Buffy picked up the family portrait and turned it over in her hands. Her mother, Giles, Cassie, Xander, everyone was pictured.

"Like she's really going to leave Harvard to go to a Hell dimension that she's been banished from? Or better yet, why don't we send her back a thousand years to the village that tried to kill her."

"We could send her back a thousand years," Buffy whined.

"Didn't I just explain that?" Willow's voice was filled with frustration.

Buffy sighed and stopped doodling on the notepad sitting next to her. "Sorry, Will."

"The holidays have rattled us all," the redhead reassured her friend. "What's new at Northwestern?"

"Tara's my roommate again, but that's not new." The blonde sighed heavily. "I think that finals are the only thing new. Remind me why I wanted to come to Northwestern again?"

"You enjoy being away from the Hellmouth. Which is, of course, protected by Annabelle so we don't have to go back there for Christmas. Or ever." Willow's slightly rambling speech made Buffy laugh even as she remembered, again, that the Council had killed Faith while she was in the coma.

"Oz isn't coming this year, you know."

"He isn't cumming?" Willow asked impishly.

"No double entendres allowed, remember?" Buffy snickered at the expression on her roommate's face. Tara then backed out of the room.

"So do you think that Giles and Jack will make their peace soon?" Willow was just as concerned about that as she was about bringing the former patron saint of scorned women home for Christmas.

"Jack still hasn't forgiven Giles for sleeping with Mom and Giles hasn't forgotten that Jack hates him." She growled under her breath.

"Men are stupid, especially ones who are related to each other." The redhead was just as vexed as the blonde.

"Men are stupid, let's throw rocks at them." Buffy pretty much finished Willow's thoughts.

"How does your mother deal with being related to Jack and dating Giles?" Willow asked thoughtfully.

"I think she's into pain."

In between laughs, her best friend managed to choke out, "No…talking…about…Joyce's…love…life."

"Which is non-existent," Buffy informed her friend.

"Oh, keep telling yourself that," was the tart reply. "I'm certain that Giles could tell you differently."

"I will thank you very much. I like my delusions so I won't ask Giles about it."

"Just keep living in your own world, why don't you?" Then Willow waited for the expected reply.

"I like living here. In here, I'm normal."

"And that's the only way you ever will be."

"I resent that." Buffy's voice was slightly mocking.

"No, you resemble it." Both girls laughed before Willow sighed. "You really think everyone will hate Anya?"

"Hate her?" Buffy muttered. "No, they won't hate her. Xander may drool all over her, but no one will hate her."

The comment had the desired effect on Willow as she cracked up again. "Now that we've sufficiently run up the long distance bill, you want to get off?"

"You called, so it'll be on _your_ long distance bill." Buffy smirked as she heard Willow's groan. "And please don't hack the phone company again."

"Aww, but it's so easy!"

"Do you _want_ me to call Mom and rat you out?"

"Tattletale."

"Only if you hack the telephone company," she pertly returned. "But Tara has to call one of her lab partners, so I'll see you at Janet's, okay?"

"Later, 'gator."

"After while, crocodile."

**They never seem to be without**

**Those little things to laugh about**

"We're off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Lowe's!" Cassie buried her head in her hands as Jack sang that line for about the sixteenth time in less than two minutes.

"Why did we have to go to Lowe's?" she whined, looking at Sam. The blonde was driving the car while Jack was driving them mad.

Daniel sighed heavily. "We're buying an artificial tree. Some people don't trust my allergies."

"You start sneezing the moment we're through the gate, Space Monkey!" Jack stopped singing long enough to comment.

"My allergies are better, Flyboy," he protested. Then the archeologist winced as Cassie, Janet, and Jack all glared at him. Teal'c simply raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, look," Janet sighed. "It's a lover's spat."

_Everyone_ winced when Sam turned in her seat and stared at Daniel and Jack with a look of disbelief on her face.

"Eyes on the road, Sam," Janet reminded her.

"Oh, yeah." The occupants of the car all sighed in unison as she turned back around.

Cassie leaned in close to Teal'c. "She scares me when she's like this. It's like an evil alien who only cares about shopping has taken over and Sam isn't even there anymore."

"You are uncannily right." Even then, Cassie stifled a grin at the other alien's reply.

"We're off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Lowe's."

Janet reached out and slugged her half brother and favorite pin cushion. "You're sounding like a singing idiot. Shut up."

"He is a singing idiot," Daniel snickered.

"You're really not getting any tonight," Jack snarled.

"He's an idiot in general," Cassie muttered under her breath, only audible to Teal'c who happened to be sitting next to her.

"It is not nice to speak ill of your elders," he remarked gravely.

"I won't speak ill of him when he starts _behaving_ like he's older than me, okay?" Cassie's eyes widened with dread as she realized they'd arrived at their destination. "Oh, Hell on Earth."

"Lowe's is a store, not Hell," Teal'c said slowly.

"We're going shopping with Sam; any store is Hell." Janet shook her head slightly at her daughter's declaration but really couldn't refute the sixteen year old's statement.

"Remember people," Sam told them, "we are looking for bargains. If someone stands between you and a purchase, get them out of the way. Even if you do have to use force to move them."

Cassie and Jack exchanged looks and spoke in unison. "Shopping alien."

"Don't call her a shopping alien," Janet sighed, already knowing that she'd have to repeat herself several hundred more times.

"But she is or she's been taken over by one. There's no other explanation," Daniel got in on it.

"Here's an idea," the doctor said dryly. "Maybe she's just being female?"

Everyone else considered it before shaking their heads.

"Nah," Jack finally said. "That can't be it."

Janet just groaned. Between Sam and everyone else, this was going to be a _very_ long shopping trip…and there was still even more stores they had to go to when the rest of the family arrived.

**Good friends**

**They have the kind of love**

**That only deepens**

**It's something that you rarely find worth keeping**

**Oh people even new ones come**

"Owww. Are we there yet?" Xander asked from the backseat of the rented van.

Buffy, who had just hit him on the arm, glared. "You just asked that a couple of minutes ago."

"Well, if someone would answer the question, maybe I'd stop asking it."

"If you stopped asking that question, maybe I'd stop hitting you."

From the front seat, Joyce said firmly, "Both of you knock it off. You're adults; act like it."

"Yes, Mother," both chorused.

Three minutes later, Giles glanced in his rearview mirror. "Please stop that."

"Stop what?" Willow asked as she leaned around her seat. "I'm not touching you; I'm not touching you."

"Dad, she's doing it again," Xander whined in a perfect rendition of a four year old.

"Don't make me turn this car around because don't think I won't, young man." Giles managed to say this in an odd facsimile of a Southern, American accent.

This left the rest of the van's other occupants staring at him silently in shock for five minutes. It gave Giles the false hope that the ordeal was finally over.

But as they pulled into Janet's driveway, he heard again, "Owww."

"I'm not touching you; I'm not touching you."

"Are we there yet?"

"Yes, Xander, we are," he growled.

"You didn't have to yell," he stuttered in surprise.

"I have spent the last hour listening to all of you bicker, touch each—" he was interrupted

"Actually, I wasn't touching him. That was the point." Willow smiled innocently.

"I honestly do not care anymore." He slammed his door as the teenagers stared at him in shock.

"Wow," Anya commented from next to Willow. "That was one unhappy man. This is what modern human families are like?"

"It's what typical American families are like anyway," Buffy laughed as she pulled her suitcases out of the trunk.

"I don't think I want one." Anya's frank statement made Xander snicker.

"You get to deal with the O'Neill-Frasier-Giles-Summers Clan." He said it like it was a death sentence. "You're Willow's roommate that she decided to bring home. Ergo—that is the word, right?—that means you're one of us now."

"Does that make any sense to you?" Anya looked around at the small crowd of people outside the house. "Because it makes as much sense to me as giving precious money to charities that won't give it back."

Willow pressed her head into her hands. "She's obsessive compulsive about money."

"It's as good as orgasms."

Jack blinked. "We have another weird addition to the family?"

"Yep," Buffy grinned. "She's Willow's roommate."

"And an ex-vengeance demon," the redhead felt compelled to add.

Sam just shook her head. "Let's take this discussion inside."

**You're lucky if you find just one good friend**

"Noooo," Cassie whined. "We can stay here by ourselves. We will be just fine and we won't burn anything down. We promise."

"You're coming with us," Janet growled. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Joyce and Giles having similar conversations with the older teens.

"No, we're not." Cassie's voice may have been just a tad desperate, but she figured the situation warranted it.

"You are coming shopping with us," her mother told her firmly.

"You're taking the evil shopping alien with us. Therefore, I'm not going." Over where she was talking with Joyce, Buffy's eyebrow arched in a question.

Cassie frowned in response as her mother sighed. "You're coming and that's final young lady."

Fifteen minutes later, the step cousins were glaring at their respective mothers from their seats in the van.

"I cannot believe that Xander and the other guys didn't have to come," Willow groused from behind them.

Her seat mate, Anya, asked, "What is so wrong with going shopping?"

"We don't mind shopping; we mind going shopping with Sam," Buffy explained.

The driver, Joyce, rolled her eyes. "You should be grateful that Sam's driving Janet's car so that we have someplace to store the presents. Otherwise, she would be very offended."

"We're just telling the truth," Cassie protested.

Janet was officially seeing red. It was bad enough that she got dragged on shopping expeditions with Sam and the teenagers' derogatory remarks did not help her mood.

"Hello everyone," Sam greeted them as they pulled into the mall parking lot.

"Hello, Sam," the van's occupants chorused as they piled out of the rented vehicle.

"Now, remember to take no prisoners." Everyone but Anya watched in disbelief as she grabbed a cart and rushed into Kohl's.

"I like her," Anya commented as she followed the blonde's example.

"She's so much saner when she's at work." Janet looked like she wanted to burst into tears.

"I wish I could say that Anya gets saner," Willow sighed. "But, you know, she doesn't. Ever."

"We feel your pain," Buffy smiled weakly. "We really, really feel your pain."

Joyce looked at everyone and decided that she had to be the good friend. "They have Sam's car. We can go shopping else where."

"Thank you," her fellow females chorused as they climbed back into the van.

**And we say goodbye**

**Knowing what we have will fade away**

**We'll meet another time**

**Another day**

**My friend**

"Can anyone believe it's Christmas already?" Willow asked as they all gathered around the table over a week later.

"Can anyone believe that a Jewish girl is asking that question?" Xander responded.

She reached across the table and slugged him as hard as she could. "Hey, I used to watch the Christmas movies with you."

Buffy snickered as Xander blushed. "To answer your question, Will, I can't. We'll open our presents later."

"And then we'll go to the stores tomorrow so that we can exchange our presents," Cassie continued in the same quietly hushed voice.

"And then we all go our separate ways four days from now." Janet passed the mashed potatoes as she looked around at her family and friends.

"Next Christmas, can everyone tell me that we're getting together more than a week beforehand?" Jack glared at SG-1 and Janet in particular.

Buffy shook her head as she passed a green bean casserole. "Tara and I are already planning to go visit her mother's sister in Montreal next year. She's like the only one who treats Tara like she's something other than dirt."

"You aren't coming home next year?" Janet looked scandalized. In that moment, the former Scoobies saw how much they'd all come to mean to her.

Buffy smiled sadly. "I'll try and make it back sometime next year, but I can't be certain I will."

It was later, when they'd finished the meal, that Willow cornered Buffy. "Going to Montreal, my Aunt Fanny. What's going on, Buff?"

"We are going to Montreal, Willow." Her eyes misted for a moment before clearing.

"Then what else is going on?" The redhead knew her friend wasn't being completely up front; she just didn't know how to get the information out of her.

"Nothing," she said quietly. "Nothing at all."

Before Willow could grill her further, Xander skidded to a stop in front of them. "C'mon, my fair friends. There are presents to attack!"

Willow shot Buffy a look as they walked down the hallway that promised that the subject wouldn't be forgotten.

Walking into the living room, however, caused the friends to burst out laughing. There was already wrapping paper adorning everything from the top of the tree to the curtain rod above the window.

Jack was worshipping some fancy fishing pole that Joyce had gotten him. He kept looking like he was paying homage to it.

"Look, the fishing pole is actually a god." Buffy's sarcastic tone made Willow laugh harder. "Who knew?"

"We know that he's already well acquainted with poles," the redhead said gleefully. Then her expression changed. "I hope I got good presents."

"You're Jewish," Cassie commented from beside a stack of books, courtesy of Daniel.

"And your point is…?"

"Never mind," she sighed. Cassie knew Willow well enough to know that it was a lost cause.

**Good friends**

**Their paths may never come together again**

**But in their hearts**

**They're on a road with no end**

**Where life will take us who can tell**

**Guess it's time to say farewell**

**My friend**

"Why won't you tell me what's going on?" Willow asked. The redhead had spent the last four days of their vacation sulking.

"There's an apocalypse that we hope can be diverted between now and then, but if not Annabelle and I will be waiting along with Tara; we fit the prophecy requirements."

"Prophecies can be rendered null and void or fit together in different ways; you know that."

Buffy heaved out a gusty sigh. "We're hoping that's the case. If it doesn't turn out well, you have to promise me that you won't interfere."

"I won't," Willow told her.

"You have to this time. It doesn't mean that you are any less of a friend. I just need you to stay out of it. PROMISE ME, WILLOW."

In the face of Buffy's temper snapping, Willow did the only thing she could do: she agreed. "Alright, Buffy. None of us will interfere. Any of us."

"Thank you. I will personally kill anyone who interferes if worst comes to worst." And in that moment, Willow knew that it was worse than any other apocalypse. Or maybe it was the fact that they were all grown up with lives of their own. She had the feeling it was a strange combination of both.

Anya walked out from behind the door. "I do not understand you. You always put your family first, but this time you threaten them. Surely you do not expect this to work."

"Yes, I'm threatening them," Buffy tried to explain, "but it's for their protection. And I hope it will work because I am being honest about killing them. I'd hate to do it, but if it gets the job done…"

"Kitty has claws," Willow observed.

"Kitty received those claws from a college grade-A asshole."

"Ooo, tell me about it on the way to the airport."

"I'll email you all the details, Will. I refuse to discuss this within earshot of my mother, my Watcher, and Xander."

"Makes sense," Anya chirped. "Just as much sense as the tradition of exchanging crisp green bills for merchandise. It didn't used to be like this you know—"

"That is supremely nice, Anya." Willow pinched the bridge of her nose; she could feel the headache coming on.

Over an hour later, Giles had sworn that he would never be trapped in a car with the three young people and one ex-Vengeance demon ever again.

First, he'd had to deal with "I'm not touching you." Then he found out that the Slug bug game hurt quite a lot when there seemed to be dozens of Volkswagens on the roads. Finally, the endless stream of "Are we there yet?" seemed to be designed just to drive him up the wall.

Sadly, he had the feeling he'd miss all his surrogate children. And Willow's roommate seemed to be unique enough to fit right into the group. Admittedly, she was a former _demon_ but he wasn't certain he cared anymore.

He tuned back into the conversation as they each prepared to go through the different gates at the Denver International Airport.

"You take care of yourself, Willow; Anya," Buffy chided the two girls headed back to Harvard.

"You too; you're all skin and bones," Willow shot back.

"Don't let any inappropriate things happen, okay?" Xander jumped into the conversation.

"We won't do anything inappropriate that we didn't want to happen." Anya just shot him a smug smile.

Ten minutes later, the goodbyes were finished and Giles and Joyce watched their 'children' walk away.

"I hope they all make it back," Joyce commented quietly.

"You and I both."

When Willow looked back as she and Anya reached the security check point, all she could do was smile at the sickeningly sweet sight that she was forced to gaze upon. "I did not need to see Joyce and Giles frenching."

**Good friends**

**You never will forget**

**Your good friends**

One Christmas later, Buffy Summers stared at her roommate with pride on her face. "We did it, and now I have enough time to get to Aunt Janet's to at least say 'Hi' and assure them that I did live through a visit to Montreal."

"When did they realize that you and Annabelle were stopping an apocalypse?" Tara Maclay asked quietly.

"Three hours ago when I called and told them that I was about to try and save the world again."

"I cannot believe you did that." The two young women were in the airport; Annabelle had already left so it was just the two of them.

"I warned them that I already knew I'd have to be in Montreal last year," Buffy remarked. The Codex had been adamant that two Slayers and a witch had to be present for it to be stopped. She figured that at least they'd had a year to prepare for the apocalypse which had been highly unusual.

Tara just chuckled. "I'll see you back at school."

"Want me to pass on your regards to my 'delicious looking sister-like friend?'"

The wicked grin told Tara she was only joking but the young woman was still slightly offended. "No. Just because I think she's hot does not give you the right to tell her what I think of her. She hasn't even met me for Goddess's sake!"

"I guess it's time for 'Home again, home again, jiggity jig.'" Then Buffy gave a quirky smile. "Who would have thought that I'd consider my Watcher's sister, who was raised outside the family, to be family enough that I consider her house 'home?'"

"I have the feeling that no one would have imagined it just a few years ago. Goodbye, Buffy."

"Goodbye, Tara. Good work on the apocalypse."

"Same to you; same to you." And with that, the two went their separate ways for a grand total of six days. There would be other chances for the young witch to meet the 'retired' Slayer's family.

And, like Buffy's previous family events, those that Tara attended were no less strange and harried…

_A/N: I hope that made at least partial sense because I did end up tying into my last Fic-a-thon response. I hope you like it, Kei, even if it is nothing but rubbish against most stories on this site. Please, please review. Also, this in now going into my Familial Mayhem (the Funeral series) story after I have tweaked it enough that it is no longer general. /smirks/_


	4. I will remember you

_Title: I will remember you_

_Author: Lady Maria or Maria_

_Disclaimer: I don't own BtVS or Stargate SG-1. I also don't own I will remember you; that belongs to Sarah McLachlan. The shows belong to Joss Whedon and MGM (again, we think) respectively. Other people also own them but I really don't know who they are. I do of course own the old British lady from Angry all the Time but my muse keeps bitching about how she wants the funny lady. I also own Amandine Frasier. throws hands up into the air Why the hell did I end up with my older sister as my muse? It's annoying!_

_Rating: PG-13_

_Series: The Funeral series_

_Summary: Cassie's graduation brings her family back to Colorado Springs. It also causes her to get very, very angry at their antics. Then again, they did disrupt her graduation ceremony. Wouldn't you get angry?_

_Warning: HINTS OF SLASH. VERY LIGHT HINTS BUT THEY ARE THERE. YOU CAN IGNORE THEM OR LEAVE THE STORY, BUT PLEASE DON'T LEAVE A REVIEW COMPLAINING ABOUT IT._

_Place in Canon/spoilers for Stargate SG-1: Disregards most of the seasons and episodes except for those that Cassie was in. She did tell me to warn everyone that this story disregards almost all of season seven so ---SPOILER WARNING--- I'm disregarding Janet Frasier's death._

_Important Change: Correction, my muse and I conferred (yes, my muse is actually a living, breathing person) and we decided that Mini-Jack was skipped ahead several grades so that he is 16 ½ at the end of his freshman year of college. Loki removed several memories of Jack's family when he was cloned Mini-Jack. Therefore, Mini-Jack (I'm taking the cue from other authors and calling him Jon) has no idea of Jack's family other than Charlie and Sara. Okay? Okay._

_Place in Canon/spoilers for Buffy the Vampire Slayer: AU after season three although characters from later episodes and seasons may or may not be appearing. After all, I'm striving to have a low amount of original characters. _

_Author Notes: Anything else you need to figure out can be explained within this fic. It starts out slightly angsty but will be humorous.. Have fun reading and please review. REMEMBER THAT THIS IS FAIRLY AU!!!!!_

_Muse Note: Okay, I want to know if you like my writer's writing because she puts herself down and annoys the hell out of me. Please do this; it's bugging the hell out of our ex English teacher and me. Please, please, please!_

**I will remember you**

**Will you remember me?**

At twenty-one, Buffy Summers seemed to have it all going for her. She was a junior at Northwestern University, beautiful, and extremely motivated. But underneath the façade was a young woman who was scared to death of the future. Technically, she was no longer the active Vampire Slayer, and hadn't been since the day that Annabelle had been called.

After the Council realized that Faith was never going to be 'rehabilitated,' they'd had the Rogue Slayer killed. She'd never regained consciousness so Buffy viewed the Council's actions with even more scorn. Their actions were those of scared cowards instead of the actions of a powerful shadow agency. Faith's death had triggered Annabelle's destiny and ended Buffy's.

But Buffy remained scared of the future even though it was highly unlikely that she would die in the line of duty. While she had died once, she had made it farther into adulthood than any other Slayer. She was the first to die once but be revived.

She was the first in years to go to college. If Annabelle wasn't patrolling on the Hellmouth, Buffy wouldn't have been able to go to Northwestern. She loved her classes and wanted to become a lawyer. She had a list of goals written out; she still didn't quite believe she'd live to see the list's completion.

The blonde crossed her dorm room to her desk. A smile flitted across her face when she picked a framed photograph up. It was the one of only two photos of her whole family that existed. The other one was a serious picture that had been taken the same day. It had taken Janet over thirty minutes to gather everyone together in one place and then another fifteen to get everyone who'd wandered off to rejoin the group.

Forty-five minutes after the first call for family pictures, the professional photographer was getting antsy. Nineteen year old Buffy had wanted to snicker at the look on his face when Janet informed him that she had to get everyone calmed down before he could take the picture. It had taken another thirty minutes to accomplish that feat. Janet's daughter, Cassie, had laughed herself silly when the poor man had run off immediately after taking the photos.

Over two years later, Buffy was still smiling as she looked at the photograph. Her uncle Jack was a 'respectable' distance away from his lover, Daniel. Anyone who had been there, however, knew that Daniel was groping Jack's ass in the picture. On Jack's other side, she herself had leaned in and kissed his cheek while Xander leaned over to Daniel and gave him bunny ears. Her mother, Joyce, and her mentor, Giles, had been sent to opposite sides of the photo. Janet had ended up screaming at her brother and his lover when the two couldn't keep their hands—or lips—off each other.

Sixteen year old Cassie had a friendly arm around Xander and there was no sign that the two would engage in a water fight as soon as the picture taking was done. Willow and Oz, who were both like surrogate children to Joyce and Giles, were also separated. Janet had put Oz next to Buffy and Willow was next to Janet.

The rest of Jack's team was in the photo as well. Samantha Carter was standing on the other side of Buffy than Oz and Teal'c had ended up next to Joyce. All in all, the family was pretty much all present and accounted for. They'd even all managed to smile...the second time, the serious time.

In the present, Buffy gently set the photograph back down. She had made memories with her family that Christmas. She'd flown in from Northwestern; Willow had arrived from Harvard. Xander had gotten accepted into the University of Washington only to find that he didn't qualify for scholarships like the two girls did. The family had simply rallied around him and raised money for his schooling. Oz was attending the University of California Berkley and working gigs with Dingoes Ate my Baby on the side.

Two and half years later, Cassie was in her final weeks of high school. Oz and Willow hadn't been a couple since the end of freshman year of college. Willow was expected to bring her current boyfriend, Riley Finn, to Cassie's graduation and the week long reunion that would follow it. Oz had R.S.V.Ped as well but hadn't noted whether or not he was bringing a significant other. Xander was definitely coming alone; he'd even put that on the R.S.V.P. To be precise, he said that he was 'coming stag.'

Buffy herself was considering bringing her off again/on again boyfriend to Cassie's graduation and whatnot. They'd started going at it when she was still in high school, actually they'd started screwing around the summer that she was seventeen. Four years later, they mainly got together during holidays when Buffy was back in California.

That didn't mean that he didn't have a special place in her heart, however. The summer before, the two had decided to cool their relationship off and date other people. Four boyfriends later on her part and two girlfriends later on his, they'd realized that they still needed and possibly even loved each other no matter how informal their dating habits were.

Something rubbed against her legs and she shrieked. Her roommate, Tara Maclay, laughed softly from the doorway. They'd been roommates from freshman year on so the soft-spoken woman was well aware of most of the Slayer's secrets. Buffy also knew the witch's secrets. "You d-d-do realize that that's just the cat, right?"

Buffy blushed. "Of course I did. Yep, I knew it was just the freaky feline. Just our witchy black cat…No, no I didn't."

"D-D-Didn't think so." She noticed the envelope that Buffy still grasped lightly in her hand. "They came?"

"Depends on what you mean by 'they came?'." Buffy grinned as Tara's hope flickered and died.

"I hoped the tickets c-c-came," she explained.

"Then you got your wish!" The petite blonde took the tickets out of the envelope and gave them to Tara who danced around the room with them in her hand. "Although why you want to come to one of my family functions is beyond me."

"It sounds like fun."

"Right," Buffy drawled. "Ten bucks says that you will throw up at least once during this family 'reunion.'"

"What?"

"Trust me," she smirked, "one of us can't lose."

"You're on."

**Don't let your life pass you by**

**Weep not for the memories**

In a similar dorm room located in one of Harvard's residence halls, Willow Rosenberg was also done with her finals. She was actually ready for the end of the school year but she wasn't looking forward to her trip to Colorado.

The redhead wasn't excited about Cassie's graduation for one reason. His name—okay, nickname—began with an 'O' and ended with a 'Z.' Yep, she really didn't want to see her ex.

As she systematically packed her belongings up because yet another year was done, a small sighed escaped. Goddess, she missed Oz. It was like missing a limb, being Willow without her Oz sometimes. She had Riley, but Riley wasn't Oz. No matter how she thought about it, her heart wouldn't accept what her head knew. Her heart couldn't accept that she was no longer part of 'Willow-n-Oz' anymore than it could accept that she _was_ part of 'Willow-n-Riley.' She had to wonder if that was because Riley was so very wrong for her. That fact was apparent in every facet of their relationship.

For one thing, she'd never felt the same distance between her and Oz that often occurred with Riley. For another, it _really_ didn't help that Jack had recently called to inform her that Mr. I'm-in-the-Army-now was an NID operative. Lastly, she would have already taken Riley home to meet Momma Joyce if she thought they'd have a lasting relationship. At the very least, Buffy and Xander would have met Riley by the third month of her dating Riley. Instead, she'd been dating him for seven months and all her family knew about him was that his name was Riley and he was NID.

"This is just wonderful," she hissed before throwing clothing into a box.

The 'thawp' of jeans hitting cardboard caused her roommate to poke her head into the room. "I know you don't care for the end of the school year, Will, but don't take your frustration out on the box."

"I didn't realize that you were finished with your last final, Anya."

"The sooner I finished my final, the sooner I could have orgasms with Kenny." Anya looked slightly peeved.

"Then you are here, why?"

"Asshole said that I was just too blunt and he didn't want a girl he couldn't take home to Mom and Daddy." The girl sneered. "Like that mama's boy was really concerned with Daddy's approval."

Willow couldn't help it; she laughed heartily at Anya Emerson's reaction. Then she made an offer that normally wouldn't have happened. "You want to use my second ticket and fly out to Colorado with me?"

"That's Riley's ticket," Anya stated slowly.

"It was Riley's ticket," Willow corrected. "But I'm not going to be his girlfriend after our date tonight, so why should he come back with me?"

Anya sucked in a breath, knowing that Willow had to have made that decision as she said offered the extra ticket. "You're dumping him?"

"Why not?" The redhead's tone was casual, but after two years of being roommates, Anya knew better.

"He's scum, you know. I could give you Hallie's number if you want. I bet she'd do something drastic to him if you wanted her to."

"No, _Anyanka_," Willow told her firmly. "I am not going to contact one of your Vengeance demon friends."

"She prefers the title of Justice Demon," Anya gleefully informed Willow.

"Are you done packing yet?"

"Pretty much," was the brief reply. "Are any of your relatives Vikings in the sack?"

Willow took a deep breath and composed herself before she answered. "Anya, they're my relatives. I don't go to those particular visual places."

"But why not? It's not like they're actually related to you by blood."

The redhead went back to her packing before she answered. "Family isn't about blood to me. Family is about the people I run to when I'm scared or call when I'm excited about something. Family is Cassie pouring ice down my back at three in the morning and waking me out of a sound sleep. Family is Xander running around with Buffy's underwear on his head." Willow joined Anya in chuckling at her heart brother. "He was eighteen no less; all four of us were."

"Are there pictures of that?" Anya's eyes glittered with malice.

"Buffy has all the copies as well as the negatives." Then she reconsidered. "No, Oz has a couple of them. It was decided that that way, Xander would have to get and destroy the pictures from both of them. Since Buffy attends Northwestern and Oz goes to UC Berkley, Xander has never been able to destroy them."

"You've never talked about a relative named Oz before," Anya observed. Her smile glimmered with mischief. "Is he a Viking?"

"Once he gets going," Willow returned. Amusement colored her voice. "We dated in high school and through our first year of college."

"That Oz?" Anya's eyebrows shot to her hairline. "You mean you count your ex as part of the family?"

"He started being counted as part of the family while we were dating. It didn't change after we broke up."

"I think I will come along," Anya laughed. "I don't suppose you'll go after your ex again?"

"If he's single, he's fair game for everyone." Willow's eyes reflected pain as she continued, "But to answer your question, I won't pursue him again. I think we've proven time and again that we're just not meant to be."

"From the little I know of your ex, you seemed perfect for each other."

"Times change, Anya. People do too, and that's what happened between Oz and me."

"Ten bucks says you get back together with Oz during this family function." Anya stared the redhead down.

"As in dating him again?" she clarified.

"Exactly."

"You're on," Willow agreed.

**Remember the good times that we had?**

Back in Washington, Alexander Harris—Mr. It's-Xander-never-Alexander—was cramming his own junk into boxes. He was thrilled beyond belief that he was done with his finals. "Woooooooo!"

Jonathon O'Neill chuckled as he walked in. His roommate had made a characteristic mess of the room while packing. "I see that Hurricane Xander has struck again."

"Tornado Xander, get it right."

"So you're headed home tomorrow, right?" Jon and Xander had only been roommates for a year since Jonathon was a freshman and Xander a junior. Therefore, the two didn't know each other as well as they might have. The age difference didn't help, although Xander had acknowledged that Jon acted older than his appearance of being sixteen.

"No."

"No? Then where are you going?"

"My younger cousin's graduating from high school next week," Xander explained. "We're all congregating at her mom's house or other relatives' houses. Then after we attend her graduation, we have a week of family bonding."

"Sounds like fun," Jon said in a tone that dripped sarcasm. "You gotta love family."

"I do." Xander picked up a picture that Jon had never noticed before. Two girls and another guy were standing with Xander, all four mugging for the camera. What caught Jon's attention, however, was the still smoking rubble behind them.

"Why are you and whoever they are standing in front of what looks like a war zone?" From Jack's memories, Jon could remember what that looked like.

"That one's Willow," he pointed to a redhead and then the other redhead, "and that's her boyfriend Oz," then he pointed to a blonde, "and that's Buffy."

"But why are you standing in front of a war zone?"

"That was our high school. A gas main exploded at our graduation and reduced it to that." He gave his roommate the official story since he didn't want to corrupt the younger man or taint his innocence. If only he had known. "Buffy and Willow are like sisters to me and they'll both be at our family reunion/Cass's graduation."

"A gas main exploded and caused that much damage?" Jon asked skeptically.

"That's what they said." Xander shrugged as he finished packing. "So you're headed home to your family?"

"No," Jon said shortly. They'd never talked about family before, and it was still a sore subject for him. "My family is close to nonexistent. There's only one relative that's still alive and we don't talk at all."

"Ouch," Xander whistled. "If you wanted, you could come back with me. Colorado Springs is nice."

Jon inwardly winced. "No thanks. I'm staying here anyway. Taking summer classes and working. What fun!"

Xander laughed at his tone. "Just know that my family's got an open invitation policy to any roommates, friends, significant others, enemies, and people who are just plain trying to kill us."

"Which one am I?"

"My roommate and you aren't a bad friend either."

"Don't make me get all sentimental in return," Jon kidded.

"Don't worry, I will," Xander returned with a smile.

**I let them slip away**

**From us when things got bad**

**How clearly I first saw**

**You smilin' in the sun**

**Wanna feel your warmth upon me,**

**I wanna be the one**

Daniel "Oz" Osborne was driving down the Oregon interstate and musing on the things he'd seen happen in his 'family.' Although he wasn't bound to the makeshift family as firmly as Buffy or Willow, he was still blessed to be a part of it. For instance, everyone had played a different part in the mess that had been the final months of his and Willow's relationship. Without them there, he had the feeling that their breakup could have been much, much worse.

Cassie had turned out to be a constant for Willow, much like Xander was. She'd been sixteen while he and Willow had been on their way to breaking up. She'd been there watching as they argued twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. She'd lent the redheaded woman a shoulder to cry on and a sympathetic ear. While she pretended to be apathetic to the world around her, she truly cared. When the vacation was over, Cassie had remained in contact with her through the internet and running up the phone bill.

Buffy had watched as well. Since her job of comforting Willow was taken by Cassie, she'd helped Oz. He would sit on the floor of Janet's garage and stare at her without saying a word for hours and she just sat there sharpening a stake. It hadn't fazed her even when he became very talkative. On those occasions, she had nodded encouragingly as he babbled like Willow on crack.

Things hadn't been great with Buffy's love life either, as Oz had found out one night during Spring Break. UC Berkeley and Northwestern had been the only two colleges to go on Spring Break at the same time. He and Dingoes Ate my Baby had been performing at Northwestern and he was crashing with Tara and Buffy.

He came in at three in the morning the second night he spent there and literally ran into Buffy. She was bawling her eyes out like someone had died so he sat down next to his ex-girlfriend's pseudo-sister and gently hugged her. He asked her what was wrong and got a hiccupping reply that had words mangled and jumbled up in it.

He asked her to repeat what she'd said and the strong young woman had promptly burst into tears again.

Buffy had finally calmed down that night and explained that her boyfriend had called to inform her that his younger sister was dead. Apparently, the two girls had been close and so it really tore her heart in two. Oz was fairly sure that she hadn't told him everything but he'd never pressed.

Over two years later, he was pulling into the parking lot of University of Washington's resident housing. Xander was talking to a guy who was hauling stuff from one section of the housing area to another. The guy didn't look old enough to be in college but what did Oz know?

He got out of the van and waved. "Xander!"

"Just a sec," his friend called back.

Xander was never punctual but if he was actually supposed to be somewhere and he was halfway ready, Oz figured that hell was freezing over. Or maybe Jenny Calendar was dancing a jig with Darla on the cobblestones of purgatory. Yeah, hell would freeze before that happened.

Fifteen minutes later, Xander slid his boxes into the van and waved goodbye to the young man that he had been talking to. "See you in the fall, Jon!"

"Yeahsureyoubetcha," Jon called back. The he frowned and hit his head. "See you then, Xander!"

"That is one odd male," Xander laughed.

"Seemed young. Too young."

"He was skipped through several grades," Xander shrugged. "He's very smart although he's told me that I never want to put him around anything that could possibly create a bomb. I don't want to even know why."

"Dude."

"That sums it up." Xander turned in his seat so that he could face Oz. Although the werewolf had his concentration on the road in front of him, Xander had no doubt that he would pay attention to what Xander had to say.

"You need to talk to Willow, Oz."

"She's got a boyfriend."

"Werewolves mate for life," Xander said quietly. He got no response in reply save for the screeching of the brakes.

"How'd you find that out?"

"I researched it after I caught you and Buffy talking about 'Willow will come around' that Christmas."

"She has to move on with her life." Oz had hit the interstate again. "I won't pressure her. She made it clear that she wanted her own life."

"Just think about it, okay?"

"Okay."

**I will remember you**

**Will you remember me?**

Cassie Frasier watched her classmates stream out to the yearbook signing with a strange sort of detachment. She really had no one to sign her yearbook since most of her friends had drifted away during high school. Well, one of her mom's brothers' daughters was in her year, but they tended not to draw attention to their friendship.

Cassie jumped as she felt someone tap her shoulder. Turning around, she noticed a girl she vaguely remembered from her freshman year. The girl introduced herself as Karenna Johnson and offered to sign Cassie's yearbook if Cassie would sign hers.

By the time Cassie got back to her mother's house, she'd figured out that she knew more people from high school than she would have thought. Her yearbook was completely filled with signatures and her hand hurt from all the signing she'd done.

She got out of the car recalling with a smile how badly her uncles had been bitched out all those years before. They'd had to clean the car until it was spotless. Now, however, she kept the car clean herself and they now knew better.

Walking up the sidewalk, Cassie couldn't believe that she had just finished her last day of high school. Sometimes it seemed like it had only been a couple of days since she'd first come to Earth instead of years. But the fact that she was graduating brought home that fact with blunt accuracy.

She was so engrossed in her thoughts that she never even registered that the television was on despite the fact that she'd turned it off before she left. She jumped a mile when she felt hot breath on her neck.

"Look at this tasty morsel," a male voice hissed as hands tightened around her waist. She started to try to defend herself before her brain registered who the voice belonged to.

"Xander Harris, let go of me this instant!"

"He's not the one holding you," Buffy laughed. But she let go of Cassie anyway and received a slap upside her head as thanks.

"Xander, I expect that from." Cassie glared at her cousins. "You, not so much."

"You sound like Jack now." Joyce came out of the kitchen to embrace the young woman.

"What can I say?" She shrugged. "I spend _way_ too much time around him."

Buffy laughed. "Well, I think it's time to dish."

Xander looked at Willow who'd emerged from the bathroom and Tara and Anya who were coming out of Cassie's bedroom and gulped. "I'll stay here."

Oz nodded his agreement from the sofa.

"Who said you were invited in the first place, you two?" Cassie asked coldly. "It was girls-only from the beginning."

Then the two befuddled men were left confused as the five girls slammed Cassie's bedroom door in their faces.

"She's changed," Oz commented idly.

"I think they all have."

**Don't let your life pass you by**

**Weep not for the memories**

It happened that night, while everyone but Giles, Joyce, Janet, and Sam were watching Star Trek. They'd just finished Queen of the Damned which had had the four former Scoobies in stitches.

Their commentary had had everyone listening wincing. And for once, Jack thanked his stars that his sister was having sex with her boyfriend. Somehow, he doubted that Joyce wanted to know how many problems that Buffy could see with the movie.

Sam would have kept the young people in line to a certain extent but she was on the phone with Pete in the kitchen.

Because Giles, Joyce and Sam were busy, someone had had to make certain the young adults didn't burn down the house. Janet had pleaded a headache, and gone to her room and locked the door.

That left Teal'c, Daniel, and Jack. Teal'c had been roped into 'teenager sitting' although he managed to drag both his teammates along with him.

Not that the couple making out on the couch really would have noticed if the teens did burn down the house. About the only thing that distracted them from their task was the need to breathe.

And Teal'c wasn't all that helpful in minding the kids either, because he was rather wrapped up in Star Trek. Besides, he was rather mad at Xander for doing a very bad Spock impression several times throughout the show.

In Washington, Jon was taking the last of his stuff out of boxes when he ran across a framed picture that he had never seen before. But that didn't mean that he didn't know the people in the picture.

He knew Jack, he knew Carter, he knew Teal'c, he knew Cassie, and he knew Xander. He also recognized the blonde girl, Buffy, from Xander's other picture. What he wanted to know was why the picture—obviously taken several years before he was cloned—was not a memory he had.

Ten minutes later, the semi-calm atmosphere in the Frasier house was shattered when a little grey guy and Jon appeared in the middle of the living room and landed on Buffy and Cassie's backs.

"Okay, what's with the freaky grey demon?" Xander screamed. "And Jon, how do you know the freaky grey demon?"

Jon blinked but Thor answered. "I am Commander Thor of the Asgard. I am no demon."

"Then what are you?" Oz asked. "Because you don't smell human."

"I am Asgard."

"He's an alien," Buffy said casually. "Everyone here knows about aliens and works on a project about them. Well, except for Cassie and our additions."

Willow turned to her best friend. "You knew about…about…about this and didn't tell me?"

"Relax, Will," Buffy shrugged, "I wasn't supposed to even know. But Cassie tends to ramble and babble."

"I do not!" Cassie said loudly. This actually coincided with Jack and Daniel breaking apart to breathe.

"Thor, old buddy, old pal," Jack began slowly, "why are you in Janet's living room two days before Cassie's graduation?"

"I found a picture of my roommate with the man I was cloned from and decided to call on my old friend to give me a lift here." Then Jon paused. "Okay, he's your old friend, Jack, but that also means that he's my old friend. Doesn't it?"

Buffy didn't bother trying to answer his question and posed one of her own. "Who cloned Uncle Jack?"

"Rogue Asgard scientist named Loki," Cassie volunteered. The entire group had long ago been cleared for the truth if it ever needed to come up.

"And what, he screwed up the cloning process?" Willow asked slowly.

"Hence why forty-something year old Uncle Jack was cloned as a sixteen year old teenager called Jon." Cassie sighed.

"Welcome to the family, Jon," Buffy said quietly just as Sam came back into the room. "I think it'll be cool having a male cousin."

"A male cousin?" said male asked slowly.

"You're Uncle Jack's son, aren't you?" she asked as if it were the most logical cover story.

"Do I even _want_ to know?" Sam asked the room at large and Thor in particular.

"I do not believe that you do."

"Didn't think so."

**I'm so tired but I can't sleep**

**Standin****' on the edge of**

**Something much too deep**

**It's funny how we feel so much**

**But we cannot say a word**

Cassie waited impatiently for the principal to finish his speech. She was always impatient but she never showed it. Only Buffy saw how impatient she could be, how impatient she was when they left for graduation.

With a chuckle and a wink, Buffy had told her that if she blew up the high school, no one would forgive the former Scoobies. That had made Cassie laugh.

Now she was tapping her foot; how long could one man talk for?

She heaved a sigh as he finally turned the mike over to her. She stood at the podium, gazing out at the sea of faces. "We just finished four years of high school, and nine years of school before that. Most of us will go on to college, which is another three to eight years."

Cassie's eyes sought out each individual person in the crowd in front of her. "All we really have to show for our achievements are a couple of pieces of paper. A high school degree, a bunch of report cards, maybe a few old detention slips."

The audience laughed at her wry humor as they honestly started to tune into her speech. "I think what really matters are your memories of your school years. Maybe your memories seem all bad—your teachers were jerks, you didn't really have many friends, and you were constantly picked on. But somewhere in there is a good one. Perhaps it's the day your sister's old English teacher told you that you at least seemed to have brains."

One of her old friends, one of the ones she hadn't talked to in six years, laughed slightly.

"Or maybe it's of your last final, knowing that you were about to leave high school forever." Now she turned to face her soon-to-be former classmates. "It's a tough world out there, and we need to remember that. We'll need every single thing we learned in the prison that is high school to survive the real world."

A commotion caused the entire class of 2002 to stare into the audience. There were several cakes flying around the auditorium. Cassie knew that the cakes were part of the reception table, and donated by the PTSA for the hundred and sixty students graduating to eat.

She rolled her eyes and started talking again. "Or maybe your best memory—possibly it'll also be your worst—will be getting pelted with the slices of cake that are being thrown. Apparently, some of the 'grown-ups' got bored with what I thought was a short and sweet speech."

Out in the audience, several people blushed; they knew that the valedictorian was talking about them.

"So walk out of here today, diplomas firmly in your hand and all your memories held close to your heart." Then she winced. "And remember to steer clear of my family members. All dry cleaning bills can be sent to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C. Thank you for listening and I apologize for my male family members."

She turned and walked back to her seat amidst applause and several shocked looks. Cassie Frasier was the good little girl, football player Dominic Bessel's girlfriend. She didn't do anything against the rules, she got straight A's on her report cards, and was so straight laced that everyone thought that she'd been born into a family exactly like her.

Amandine Frasier's lips curved into a sardonic smile at the mutterings drifting around her. She looked at the girl next to her and laughed. "You should have brought out your bitchy but humorous side a long time ago."

"You mean before the last forty minutes of our high school graduation?" Cassie questioned.

"Might have earned you more friends and a few more dates."

"I have my family." Cassie eyed the cake that was still being tossed around the auditorium. "They would have driven anyone but you away a long time ago. And they nearly drove Dom away."

"Yeah, but I'm related to them too."

"Not technically," Cassie responded. "You're Mom's adopted brother's daughter and I'm your adopted aunt's adopted daughter."

"Still family."

Cassie tried not to roll her eyes. Mandy was stubborn and pigheaded sometimes. Then again, everyone in the family was. "I guess you are. Are you coming to the house for barbeque at the end of the week?"

"No," Mandy shrugged. "The parents are throwing me a graduation party tomorrow. You're invited of course. All the people at your house are."

"I'll make it, and so will Mom but I can't guarantee anyone else."

The principal interrupted their conversation. "Amandine Frasier."

Mandy crossed the stage with the same grace that had helped her advance through gymnastics and win the gold for floor routine at Nationals. It had also gotten her a scholarship to Florida State University. After she returned to her seat and the deafening roar of her family faded, the principal called out, "Cassandra Frasier."

The family's applause was deafening yet again. The man looked, really looked at Cassie and Mandy Frasier for the first time as Cassie took her seat again.

The sight would stay with him through countless years of watching students attend and graduate from his school. Black streaked, red haired Amandine with her kohl rimmed eyes and the front of her graduation robes open to expose the black leather mini skirt and the emerald corset top underneath was talking to perfect Cassandra. Brown haired Cassandra with her conservative makeup who had opened her robes show off her black leather mini skirt and crimson corset top?

He watched them as the Gs and Hs went and realized that Cassie wasn't the goody two shoes she'd always been pegged as. Yes, she always been the best behaved girl in her small graduating class but she was obviously more like Mandy than anyone had ever known.

After the Zs were done, Principal Michael Graham observed the graduates' reactions to the Cassie that no one at Colorado Springs High had ever seen before. Then he frowned slightly.

"Hey Principal Graham," Cassie greeted him as they approached him.

"Hello Miss Frasier, Miss Frasier."

"We just wanted to say thanks for ya know, everything." Mandy's stance was the same slightly defensive posture she always adapted when faced with teachers or principals.

"You're welcome," the principal said quietly, taken aback by the two young women's gesture.

"We better be off, cuz." Mandy tugged at Cassie's cascading waves of hair. "Wouldn't want to keep the family waiting much longer."

Her cousin rolled her eyes. "Oh no, we wouldn't want that."

"Hey, we still need to chew the idiot men new blowholes for starting a cake fight!"

"True." With that, the two young women said goodbye and smiled as they walked away.

Principal Graham would never again pigeonhole students again; the two Frasier girls had taught everyone present at the graduation that lesson with only a few words…and cake.

**We are screaming inside,**

**But we can't be heard**

**But I will remember you**

**Will you remember me?**

**Don't let your life pass you by**

**Weep not for the memories**

"I can not believe you did that!" Buffy glared at her various relatives. She was speaking instead of Cassie simply because the brunette was banging her head into a wall and groaning.

Coming back from graduation, the silence had been thick enough in all the cars to cut with a butter knife. Now that they were at the house and everyone was gathered in the living room, the women were taking a chance to yell at the various males.

"You turned my graduation into a food fight!" Cassie finally chimed in. "During my speech, no less."

"We didn't mean to," Xander said sheepishly.

"It just sorta happened." Jon quailed under Janet's gaze.

"You know, we let all you males sit together in the same row because you promised to behave. In fact," Sam said coldly, "Teal'c and Daniel even promised to keep you all in line. What happened?"

"We got bored?" Xander and Jon chimed in unison.

Cassie returned to banging her head against the wall. "I think I will never forget my graduation. I'm just glad none of you brought explosives."

"You mean, you're glad we confiscated the explosives," Joyce sighed.

Cassie just groaned.

**I'm so afraid to love you**

**But more afraid to lose**

**Clinging to a past that**

**Doesn't let me choose**

**Once there was a darkness,**

**Deep and endless night**

**You gave me everything you had,**

**Oh you gave me light**

Dominic Bessel shuffled his feet as his girlfriend's relatives glared at him. There were several close to his age, but he had the feeling they wouldn't be much help in defending himself from these maniacs.

One of the younger men glared at him before speaking. "I'm Cassie's cousin, Xander. If you hurt her, you will feel what being slowly beaten to death with a dull shovel feels like." Then he smiled. "And that's just if she cries. Imagine what would happen if you hurt her anymore than standing her up on a date or forgetting your anniversary..."

Another one, this one with rainbow colored hair instead of Xander's darker coloring, shifted his grip on a crossbow. Not that Dominic had actually figured out why the other male **had** a crossbow to begin with, but it looked threatening. Especially since it was pointed at his manhood. "Dude, ripping his intestines out is more painful." Then he fell silent, apparently having said his piece.

"That's Oz," the other young man, this one only sixteen or so, spoke up. "He used to date Cassie's cousin Willow. Don't worry; they won't actually kill you unless you royally fuck up. The name's Jon. I'm Jack's son." That was the explanation that they were using for outsiders.

"I'm Cassie's Uncle Jack." Jack looked up from where he was polishing an empty gun. Of course, Dominic didn't know that. "I'll empty this gun into your body if you hurt her, got it?"

"Yes I do, sir."

"Your life will no longer be worth living in if you cross Cassie," an African American man told him. "She is like the rest of her family, fierce and proud. She will extract a painful revenge from you."

His Cassie was fierce?

Just then, a petite blonde walked in, stiletto heels clacking on the floor. She strode over to where he was standing and smiled. It was a feral smile that chilled his heart. "Leave him alone, guys."

"But Buffy," every one of the guys except for the African American and the one called Xander whined. The first didn't seem to be very talkative anyway, and Xander apparently knew something the rest didn't.

Just what that was became clear when the small woman grabbed his throat and threw him against the brick wall with his feet dangling about two feet above her head. "Now buddy-boy, we need to have a discussion. Have you ever had sex with anyone other than Cassie?"

He was vaguely aware of her shushing protests from the older men. "K-K-Karma Walker. S-S-Six months before Cass and I started dating."

"Was this Destiny girl diseased?" Buffy glared at the young man she currently had against a wall.

"N-N-No," he stuttered. "W-W-We were b-b-both v-v-virgins."

"You use protection?" Buffy asked him.

"Of course." Then he blinked.

Teal'c, who had decided that the little blonde needed a bit of threatening back up, came to stand behind her so only the two of them were in Dominic's direct line of vision. "I would like to instruct you in the art of protected sexual intercourse." He held up a condom. "This is a condom."

"Wait," Jack said slowly, "where'd you get that?"

"DanielJackson enlisted my assistance in lightening the load of your baggage." Then he turned back to the young man who was pinned to a wall. "As I was stating, this is a condom. This is my fist." He punched the wall behind Dominic's head while making certain not to damage Janet's wall _or_ his hand.

"I see," the frightened male gulped.

"My fist will make certain contact with your face if you do not use a condom. Do you comprehend, DominicBessel?"

"Yes, sir." He gulped again and wondered how Cassie's family could be so scary when she was so sweet.

"Glad we understand each other." Buffy unceremoniously dropped him. "If you tell her about what has happened today, or hurt her in any way, shape or form, I will hurt you. Actually, I'll use a wooden spoon and matches to slowly and painfully sever your dick from your body. Then I will force you to eat it. Got me?"

"Got you." Dominic agreed weakly.

Buffy laughed as he scampered out of the room. "I think I wouldn't mind him as an addition to this family."

After she'd returned to Cassie's bedroom, the men let out a collective whistle.

"She's good," Jack commented. "We just should have had her do this first."

"She did it right," Xander echoed.

"She is a fine warrior." Teal'c nodded.

**And I will remember you**

**Will you remember me?**

**Don't let your life pass you by**

**Weep not for the memories**

**Weep not for the memories**

"You guys did what?" Cassie screamed while everyone was preparing for the final family dinner before everyone scattered for the summer. It was fairly clear that she was referring to her relatives in general and the males and Buffy in specific.

"Uncle Jack, get your gun!" Buffy called from the kitchen.

"DominicBessel needs a lesson in keeping his mouth superglued tight?" Teal'c questioned from near the barbeque grill outside, causing Cassie to see red.

"Crossbow," Oz volunteered from where he was setting the table.

"No one is torturing my boyfriend!" Cassie yelled while patting Dominic's head and whispering, "It'll be alright. They only get like this once in a blue moon."

"I have the spoon; has anyone seen the matches?" Buffy called out before walking into the dining room and joining the family that was located there. Then she snatched a long lighter meant for lighting fires out of Giles's hand. He had been sent in to grab the lighter so that Jack could light the grill. "Thanks, Giles."

"Give me that or tell me what you plan to use it for," Cassie growled with one hand on her hip and the other outstretched.

"I'm lighting the wooden spoon," her cousin pertly returned. As the wooden instrument caught flame, however, the blonde showed her roots. She brought her hand to the middle of her back to scratch an itch, and the next thing anyone smelled was the smell of burning hair. She didn't seem to notice it as she looked at Dominic and dropped the spoon into his glass of water.

Sam had been cutting the cake, which read 'Farewell and good luck until we meet again (if it isn't for another funeral),' with the only knife she had managed to find. The fact that they were meeting at Jack's house was painfully obvious in the lack of proper utensils. That was why she was cutting the cake using a very sharp meat cleaver.

Buffy wandered past her on her way to the deck. She was feeling awfully hot all of a sudden and wanted to cool off in the only section of the house that had fans instead of air conditioning that hadn't been turned on. She didn't even hear Sam call out for her to stop or Cassie's worried shouts.

Her relatives formed a train behind her as they tried to get her to stop. Sam was first, followed by Giles, then Oz, and Cassie and Dominic brought up the rear. Janet and Joyce were still in the kitchen with Daniel; Jack, Jon, Xander, Teal'c, and General Hammond were all gathered around the grill outside. Willow, Anya, and Tara were also helping in the kitchen.

She still didn't notice them until she felt the 'wiz' of a knife slicing the air close to her back. Her body tense and ready to fight, Buffy spun around. Then she noticed the meat cleaver held in Sam's hand as the major advanced again. Her eyes widened as Sam tried again to hurt her, or so it seemed to Buffy.

She definitely didn't want to hurt her pseudo-family member so she glared at the rest of the train. "Do none of you see how wiggy Sam's acting?"

"She's doing it for your own well being, Buffy," Giles stated calmly. "Stand still like a good girl for her."

"Hell no! Are you all nuts?"

"Buff, your hair's on fire," Cassie called out. "Stand still and let Sam put it out."

"Again, are you nuts? Grab water or something!" The slayer had started to run towards the deck again.

Sam chased after her with the knife while Dominic grabbed his glass of water and fished the wooden spoon out. Then he rejoined the train of people who were following Buffy and Sam.

The men on the deck were completely taken aback at Buffy's and Sam's appearances. Buffy's hair was smoldering with slight flames licking upwards. Luckily, she'd caught it in a ponytail that was waving slightly behind her. She was running around in circles and screaming, "Does anyone have water? Water, please!"

Sam was running behind her and waving a meat cleaver. "Stand still, damn it! Let me put out the flames."

"And hack off my head?" Buffy didn't even stop running around in circles. "How about: SHIT NO, HELL NO, FUCK NO, AND NO?"

Dominic came running up behind the two women and threw his water all over Buffy's hair. Then he grabbed it and wrung it out. "Presto chango, no more fire."

Buffy laughed. "Thanks, Dominic. Guess you aren't so bad after all. Better than Sam, at least."

"It made sense to grab the nearest object and try to put out the fire," Sam defended herself.

"But using a meat cleaver, Major Carter?" General Hammond asked in amusement.

"It made sense at the time," she shrugged.

"You would have chopped off my head!" Buffy yelped. "Then I wouldn't have been alive anymore."

"I wouldn't have killed you!"

"So says the woman who was whacking at my head with a meat cleaver!"

"This from the woman who scratched her back with the hand that had a burning wooden spoon in it and caught her head on fire!"

"It was just my hair!" Then she seemed to comprehend what she'd said. "Is my hair very damaged?"

"You'll lose about an inch," Jon and Jack said together and then looked equally uncomfortable.

"Cool, I was thinking about cutting it a little." Buffy looked immensely relieved.

"What happened here?" Joyce and Janet chorused as they came outside. They'd overheard shouting but couldn't tell what it was about. Daniel and the rest of the females trailed behind them.

"It's a long story," Cassie answered. "We'll tell everyone about it over dinner."

Buffy and Sam never did live down the 'Fire Incident' as it was forever termed. In fact, the story was told time and time again including when another incident occurred…like the one that happened just before Buffy got married…


	5. Back of the bottom drawer

_Title: Back of the Bottom Drawer_

_Rating: PG_

_Disclaimer: I don't own Stargate SG-1, Joan of Arcadia, or Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Various companies and people own those rights. Chely Wright owns the song Back of the Bottom Drawer. At least, she sings it._

_Summary: At the ripe old age of 21, Cassie looks back over her life, and her family's, with the help of objects from the past._

_Author's notes: Come on, review! It's not so hard, you know. Just submit a review. They make me feel a lot better. glares at the black formal dress that she was forced to buy And I'm not in the happiest of moods at the moment. Does anyone know who invented high heels? Because I think they should be renamed high hells._

_Please review?_

**In the back of the bottom drawer**

**Of the dresser by our bed**

**Is a box of odds and ends that I have always kept**

"Hey, where'd this come from?" The question made the brunette look up. The other woman was fingering a locked engraved wooden box.

"My cousin gave it to me forever ago." Cassie Frasier watched the confusion play in her friend's eyes. She rarely talked about her 'family' although she knew her friends wondered. She didn't mind them knowing, but even she admitted that her family was just plain weird. The weirdness tended to creep people out. "She said I needed to confide in someone or something."

"So she gave you a box?" The young woman's eyebrow rose slightly.

"B said that she knew better than to give me a diary, but didn't know what else to give me. Her 'sister,' Willow, pointed out that a box would keep my secrets."

"How'd the box end up in the back of your drawer?" Joan Girardi pressed just a little more firmly.

"You just want to know the history that is locked inside, don't you?" Cassie laughed at the look on Joan's face. It was like looking into a happy clown's face while it did its best impression of a goldfish.

"Yeah," Joan said finally. "Yeah, I do."

"Fair enough," Cassie agreed. "Like I said, my cousin Buffy gave it to me. It was her graduation present to me."

"Wow," Joan laughed, "my siblings just told me to take my party somewhere else."

"I can imagine," Cassie was laughing as well. "I've met your family, remember?"

"How could I forget?" Joan's question brought Cassie's focus back to the subject.

"I don't really hide my past, you know." She barely whispered it, causing Joan to blink in surprise at the turn in the conversation.

"I was the baby of the cousins as we started finishing adolescence. I watched more than one relationship start and then die. Others simply started and then flourished. Others had already flourished and were dying after my cousins left high school." Cassie paused, considering her words. "One of my cousins had gone out with the same guy through high school and into college but it fell apart after that. Another started fucking a guy when she was still in high school and that developed into an actual relationship. They did things out of order, but they happened. They fucked then had a friendship, they fucked then dated. Then they broke up and got back together."

"What happened to that couple?"

Cassie picked up a photo album and pointed to a couple. The girl was blonde and had her tongue stuck down the African-American man's throat. "They've been contemplating marriage for a while. But B's not ready for it and I don't think Gunn is either."

"Someone named their child Gunn?" Joan was getting really confused. This was a side of her roommate that she'd never seen before.

"Charles Gunn," Cassie clarified with a grin. "Of course, it would help if they'd actually tell B's parents and Gunn's friends that they're dating."

"How long have these two been together?"

"Years."

"And this actually has something to do with the box?" Joan questioned with a smirk.

"It was because of my cousins' dating background that I avoided most of my heartache." Her smile turned wistful as she ran her fingers along the engraved initials. "Every thing in this box has a history, a story."

"Doesn't everything?" Joan asked quietly. The flaky girl had grown up to be a woman of depth and substance.

"I'll start with the family pictures that I know are in here and go from there, alright?"

Joan smiled, wondering what was going to happen that God had wanted her to find this box. This was her latest mission, to find Cassie's box and get her to talk about it.

**But the man who sleeps beside me**

**Doesn't know it's even there**

**Little pieces of my past**

**That I shouldn't have to share**

She pulled a key from her purse and unlocked the box. "He doesn't know it's here, you know."

"My brother tends to be oblivious."

"Both of them do," Cassie laughed.

The two women were sprawled on her bed giggling like teenagers instead of fully grown women who were in college and enjoying it. Joan was a year older than she was and so was Grace. They officially shared the apartment, but that didn't mean that others didn't have keys.

With the box open, she pulled out three family portraits. The first was a serious picture of everyone, each barely smiling and several looking extremely pissed off.

"You do know that everyone in there looks slightly blue?" Joan asked.

"It was almost zero degrees Fahrenheit outside and none of us were allowed to wear winter clothing." A grin played across her lips as she started to point out various people.

"That one is my Uncle Giles. His full name is Rupert Giles, but everyone just calls him Giles. He's my mom's older brother even though they were raised apart."

"Why were they raised apart?"

"Because their mother died when Mom was really young so she was sent to live with relatives in Louisiana. They met up again at their father's funeral a few years ago. That was when his adopted children came into my life and I got cousins for the first time."

"Are they in here?"

She pointed to a redhead and then another one. "That one's Willow and that's her ex, Oz. They're both a part of our family though."

"Okay. How'd that happen?"

"Oz was just a member of the family for so long that no one could figure out how to separate him from us when they split." She smiled and pointed to a blonde. "That one's Buffy. Like I said, she's the one who gave me this box."

"What's she like?"

"Fiery, driven, and fiercely protective," Cassie answered. "She would defend our family to her dying day."

"Ouch."

"Yeah, that's the way it seems sometimes." This time she pointed out a brunette male standing next to an older male. "That's my cousin Xander and our Uncle Jack. I'm related to Uncle Jack because Mom's his half sister on his father's side, and Buffy's related to him because he's her mom's half brother on their mother's side."

"Confusing. What're they like?"

"Xander's a goof ball. So is Uncle Jack but he channels the annoyingness better." She ran through the other adults in a rapid manner after that. "That one's Aunt Joyce, Buffy's mom. She recently got married to Uncle Giles. They're _both_ related to Uncle Jack but it's not incest surprisingly. And that one's my mom, Janet Frasier. She adopted me when I was eleven."

"Wait," Joan blinked. "You've never mentioned being adopted before."

"It's a long and complicated story that happens to be classified." She smiled slightly at the look on her friend's face. "Suffice to say, my biological parents are dead and I ended up in Mom's care."

"Right." Joan drew out the word so that it had about seven syllables.

"Moving on," Cassie continued, "that's Murray and Sam. They both work with Uncle Jack and Mom. Plus, Sam's just as much my mother as Mom. The other one, Daniel, also works with them. He's also Uncle Jack's partner in _all_ things. But we aren't allowed to talk about that."

"Huh?"

"It officially breaks regulations." At Joan's blank look, she sighed. "They're in the military."

"Oh."

"That's my family my sophomore year of high school," Cassie continued blithely. "This is a picture of all of us goofing off for the camera about fifteen minutes before the serious portrait. And this is a picture of all of us three years ago just after my high school graduation."

"More faces," Joan stammered.

"That's my cousin, Jon." She pointed to Jack's clone. "He's Uncle Jack's son and was Xander's college roommate. He's super smart so he was skipped several grades. That's Buffy's roommate, Tara, and Anya roomed with Willow."

"That's it?"

"Pretty much," Cassie shrugged. "Now that you know most of the cast, do you want to move on?"

"Of course." She attempted to smile, but all she could think was that she was so surprised that Cassie wasn't crazy. Who wouldn't be crazy with that complicated of a family tree?

**A napkin that is stained with time**

**Has a poem on it that didn't quite rhyme, but it made me cry**

"This napkin has a poem on it from a guy named Jesse," Cassie began, trying to find the words she needed to explain the situation.

"Ex-boyfriend?" the other female asked. She tried to read the words on the napkin, but they were smudged with both time and tears.

"He was Willow and Xander's best friend growing up." She shook her head. "I never met him; B only met him once or twice."

"What happened to him?"

"He was murdered at the beginning of his sophomore year of high school."

"Oh." Joan's voice was flat with shock. "What does the poem say?"

_"'Today_

_I died a thousand deaths_

_Yesterday_

_I lived a thousand lives_

_Tomorrow_

_A thousand souls will be judged_

_One for every time I lived a lie.'_" Cassie's voice broke on the last word before she continued. "Jesse wrote this poem and the one on the other side just before the first day of 10th grade. Willow found the napkin in his stuff the day after he died."

"It's sad."

"It foreshadows the events surrounding his death so well." She sighed. "His death changed my cousins. It was the first time that they knew what lurked in wait."

"Then why do you have it?"

"Because I am keeper of the past, keeper of the secrets," Cassie intoned mysteriously. "Besides which, both poems make me cry. Willow couldn't stand to have it anymore by the time I came along. So I said that I'd keep it. I used to press it between the pages of a notebook."

"Why couldn't she stand it?"

"Jesse was like a brother to her and she had to listen to his screams as his murderer dragged him off. If someone took Luke or Kevin like that, would you want to hold on to the two things you know for certain they wrote within a week of their death?"

"What's the poem on the other side?"

"He didn't have the greatest grip on grammar and spelling," she sighed before laughing. "But here it is, just as he wrote it."

_"'You scream into the night_

_I want to run and hide_

_But that would disappoint you_

_Isn't that why we're having this fight_

_I didn't meet your expectations_

_I couldn't live up to your life_

_You wanted me to be perfect_

_But I wasn't, you could see it in my eyes _

_That is why I sit here my mind made up _

_I have decided to end my life _

_As I make this slit across my wrist _

_I think about our last fight _

_As my body gets lost in a crimson sea _

_Waiting for you to find.'"_

"That sounds like…" Joan trailed off.

"He was already planning on killing himself," Cassie finished. "According to Xander, it's not outside the realm of possibilities. Willow didn't believe it, but then she didn't want to believe it."

"Ouch."

"That about sums it up."

"Is there anything else in the box?"

"This is a letter my first real boyfriend gave me."

**In a 'Dear Jane' letter from a different guy**

**He broke up with me and he told me I'm not always right**

She held up a creased and smudged piece of notebook paper, wondering when it had stopped having a hold on her. "His name was Dominic."

"Dominic?" Joan pressed gently. "What was he like?"

"He was my second 'boyfriend' all together counting a childhood 'boyfriend.' He gave me some of the nicest kisses, taught me how to give blowjobs—" She broke off at the slight choking sound.

"He taught you how to _what_?"

"Give blowjobs," she repeated. "Later, we broke up for several months and a friend of his, the one who'd been my childhood 'boyfriend,' took my virginity. But that's another story all together and we got back together after that."

"When did you break up for good?"

"Just after our high school graduation," she smirked.

"So you broke up because you were going your separate ways?"

Cassie snorted at the thought. "According to this letter, he didn't want to deal with my superiority complex. He said that I had kept secrets from him for too long and that he wanted to know the truth."

"Did you tell him the truth?"

"He didn't leave a forwarding address." She continued to smirk. "Gee, I wonder why."

Joan looked slightly confused. "I wonder why!"

"The real reason he wouldn't stick around was because my family scared him."

"Scared him? How?" Joan was the only girl in her family; she'd heard her brothers' threats and been slightly scared herself. So she wondered what Cassie's family had threatened.

"I believe fire was in there somewhere. I know it was on someone's hair."

"Excuse me?" Joan looked at Cassie like she might have needed medication.

"Buffy set her hair on fire," Cassie explained with a grin.

"How?"

"She was playing with the flaming wooden spoon."

"Huh?"

"She was going to burn Dominic's penis off and scratched her hair with the hand that the spoon was in before she could do that."

"So you don't have a eunuch for an ex-boyfriend?" Joan hesitantly asked.

"No, the fire was wasted on Buffy's hair," was Cassie's candid response.

"Your cousin is a blonde, isn't she?"

"That's what the picture shows." Then she looked right and left. "Just don't let Grace hear you talking like that."

"I know," Joan shuddered.

She reached into the box at random and pulled out a key. "What's this?"

**And a stolen key from an old hotel room door**

**In the back of the bottom drawer**

"That?" Cassie's eyes glittered with mirth. "I stole it."

"You stole it?" Joan repeated, feeling like a parrot.

Cassie smiled sadly and wistfully, remembering a time after Dominic and before meeting Joan. "My first roommate and I were on Christmas vacation our freshman year of college."

"Name please."

"Kit," Cassie sighed. "Her name was Kit and we roomed together for only a year. We never requested to share a room last year."

"That's how you met Grace and me."

"The room shortage," Cassie agreed. The year before, there had been so many new students in need of housing that three people to a room had become the practice.

"About the key?" she questioned.

"We shared a room with a guy named Carlos and his roommate Aidan Ford. Carlos was an old friend of Kit's and the skiing trip in Utah was tradition for them."

"And what happened?"

"There were two beds," Cassie blushed. "Kit and I were fine sharing a bed, but Aidan and Carlos weren't."

"Then what?"

"Carlos and Kit had shared a bed before; they were practically like siblings." Her smile disappeared for a second before returning. "So that left Aidan and me. For the first couple of nights, I slept on the bed and he on the floor or vice versa."

"You ended up sleeping with him?" Joan was aware of the pull that men whose names started with 'A' wielded.

"Nope. He was several years older which made it kinda weird." Then she reconsidered. "Well, we ended up sharing the bed eventually but that was the end of it. We went out to a couple of all-ages clubs one night and we both got hit on. He went back to the hotel while I stayed out dancing."

"And then?"

"He was just another guy," Cassie shrugged. Then she smirked just slightly. "His name was Adam."

Joan's mouth dropped. "Adam what?"

"I don't know if it was your Adam or not," she sighed. Everyone who shared the apartment knew of Joan's ex-boyfriend. "He let slip that he was older that I was but that was obvious anyway."

"So the key is from the room that you, Kit, Carlos, and Aidan shared."

"No, the key is from the room that Adam was staying in at another hotel."

"Was it good?"

"Very." Cassie licked her lips. "It was very good."

"Better than," Joan gestured with her hands, "ya know?"

"Nothing's better than making love," Cassie giggled and took both of them by surprise. She was not typically a giggler.

Joan shuddered. "So why do you keep these things?"

**I don't keep these things 'cause I'm longing to go back**

**I keep them because I want to stay right where I'm at**

**I'm reminded of my rights and wrongs**

**I don't want to mess this up**

**But I wouldn't know where I belong**

**Without this box of stuff**

Before Cassie could answer, there was a knock on the door. "Girardi, Frasier, open the damn door."

"It's unlocked, mental giant," Cassie shot back.

Grace poked her head around the door. "Normally you lock the door when you do girly stuff."

"We can bring out the pink and make it girly," Joan started mischievously.

"You'll look like so totally fabulous in hot pink nail polish and hair glitter!" Cassie started to dance around her blonde roommate in a crazy imitation of the snoopy dance.

"No. N-O, I'd have voted for George W. Bush's election before I'll let you put anything pink anywhere near me!"

Both of Grace's friends started to laugh. Joan was the first to regain her ability to speak. "Relax, sit down and listen to the story of the box."

"The box? What is that, some weird cardboard thing that's traveled the world or something?"

"It's like my diary," Cassie said quietly. "Joan just asked why I keep the pieces of my past."

"And what pieces are you keeping?" Grace looked slightly confused.

"A napkin with two poems written on it by a dead friend of her cousins, a break up letter by her first real boyfriend, and several family photos," Joan sighed.

"You forgot the key from my first one-night stand's hotel room." Cassie smiled at the look of pure shock on Grace's face.

"You had a one-night stand?!" Grace almost shrieked it and then flushed. "I didn't just shriek."

"Yes, you did," both her roommates chimed in unison.

"No, I didn't," she mumbled.

Cassie sighed. "Do you want to hear what else is in the box or not?"

"Oh, yeah," Joan said emphatically. Grace just nodded and lounged back on Cassie's bed.

Cassie rooted through the box again before she found what she was looking for.

"Why do you have a birthday card in your hand?" Grace asked.

**A birthday card from my first boyfriend**

**He signed it 'I love you' so I gave in **

**Yeah, we went too far in his daddy's car **

"This card is from my _very_ first boyfriend," Cassie grinned. The card was nearly as yellowed as Jesse's napkin but the writing was actually legible. "We dated for the first time when I was ten. Just immature stuff like holding hands, and eventually we stopped 'dating' but that's not something you forget."

"What was his name?" Grace asked with a roll of her eyes.

"Pike," she said with a fond smile. "Michael was his real name; we called him Mikey back when we 'dated.' But he chose to live with his mother in L.A. soon after we 'broke up' and he didn't come back until he was sixteen. He'd been gone for over six years."

"Where'd the name 'Pike' come from?" Joan asked with interest.

"I have no idea. He was a regular bad boy though by the time he came back about four months before my sixteenth birthday."

"Weren't you dating Dominic then?" Joan asked.

Cassie smirked. "Pike was one of Dom's friends. They were total opposites in every way, but they'd found a common ground somewhere along the line."

"Yeah," Grace snarked, "your pelvic region."

"Nah, that happened after Dom and I took a three and a half month break from each other." Cassie turned the card over again.

"Well what happened, Frasier?"

"He came back from L.A. with this look in his eyes that just screamed, 'I've seen too much tragedy.'"

"What does that have to do with anything?" Grace rolled her eyes at the vague answer.

"I think," Cassie stated pensively, "that that is why we went on those first few 'friend dates' while Dom and I were cooling things off. But one thing led to another, like it so often does."

"So what, he gave you a birthday card after you slept together?" Joan ventured a guess.

"Sadly, the birthday card is why we ended up in the bed of his daddy's truck." She just laughed at her naivety. "He signed it 'I love you' and I suppose we both got caught up in the moment."

"You did use protection, right?" Both her roommates asked it in unison and sighed in relief when she nodded.

"We were young, not stupid."

"So where is he now?" Joan asked.

Cassie stared at the address on the envelope before replying. "He's in L.A., I guess."

"You slept together and you can only _guess_ where he is today?" Grace looked stunned.

"I've had intercourse with four people." She rolled off the bed so that she could pace. "One hasn't spoken to me in three years because he's scared of my family. Another was a one night stand. Pike is the third; we just lost touch with each other. And we were friends who had sex and then put it behind us. What was the real point of dwelling on it?"

"You couldn't stay in touch with him?" Joan repeated, still as shocked as Grace.

"The past is the past, Joan." Her eyes were uncannily free of emotion. "Pike was a part of my past. He took my virginity, but he didn't take my innocence."

Both of her friends just stared at her.

"I was who I was. I was a rebellious teenager who wasn't certain where she belonged. He gave me a sense of belonging to someone, but we only had sex that one time. Sex complicated our relationship unnecessarily." Her eyes twinkled slightly as she said, "We were close friends by the time he and Dom graduated the year before I did."

"Did Dom know?" Joan finally managed.

She nodded once. "He used to wonder if we would ever have gotten back together if it hadn't been for me losing the last symbolic tie to childhood. I don't think we would have."

Cassie reached into the box and pulled out a string of Mardi Gras beads. With casual deliberateness, she spun them on her right index finger. "Besides, Pike knew my cousin long before we reconnected."

She left her friends gaping as she started her last story.

**And those Mardi Gras beads from '98 **

**We danced all night, stayed out so late **

**We thought we were stars, closing down the bars**

**That champagne was cheap but still I've got that cork **

**In the back of the bottom drawer**

"Anyway," her smile was slightly tense, "you surely remember these."

Grace nodded. "Yeah, those were some good times."

"Remember how they said that we had 'old' beads, beads that had been in circulation since '98?" Joan laughed as Cassie resumed her sprawled position across from her friends.

"That was two weeks before you met him," Grace noted almost silently.

"When we got back," Cassie agreed, "we all moved into this apartment and it took everyone willing to help us move."

"But in New Orleans last year, we partied like no tomorrow." Joan chuckled as she remembered.

"Or at least, as much as we could sans alcohol." Grace picked up one of the strings of Mardi Gras beads.

"They look like any other necklaces, don't they?" Cassie's question seemed slightly odd, but both were used to it.

"Yeah," her roommates agreed.

"I suppose that it's like that with people too. Grace looks like any other political-science major when she actually has a life outside of protesting the government. She has a boyfriend that literally lives here, a best friend—"

"Two best friends," Grace broke in quietly. "But if either of you ever repeat that, so help me…"

"We know," Cassie said just as softly. "As I was saying, two best friends and I know for a fact that you love your job as a newspaper columnist. In fact, that's what you plan on being after you graduate."

"And you get this incredible burst of philosophy from a string of beads and a cork that's leftover from our first Spring Break as roomies?" Grace looked incredulous.

"No, I've gotten that from being your friend." She continued to let the strand spin on her index finger.

"Can I tell you what I remember most from that trip?" Joan was starting to realize that if nothing else, this was going to cement their friendship.

The other two women looked at her. "Why not?" Cassie shrugged.

"Even though you weren't old enough to drink, and Grace and I were choosing not to, we had fun. We stayed out at the dance clubs into all hours of the night, and—as far as I know—none of us ended up in a stranger's bed." Joan looked into the past, recalling the hellish weeks following the trip.

"We got back," she whispered, "and we got caught up with moving. You had Luke, Grace. You were just meeting him, Cass, and I had no one. But even when I was wondering if I'd ever have a relationship that didn't end in me feeling like shit, I knew I had the two of you. I knew it because of Mardi Gras."

In shock, her friends looked at each other. Grace was the one who finally spoke up. "Girardi, why didn't you tell us?"

"I didn't want empty reassurances that I will eventually find a man like you guys have," Joan admitted.

"Maybe you will," Cassie laughed, "and maybe you won't. Everyone has different needs in a man or woman. Your brother meets those needs in me, but even if he wasn't related to you, he wouldn't be your match."

Grace stared at Joan for several seconds before touching the champagne cork. "This, Girardi, is from the only alcohol we touched that trip. We toasted freedom, equality, and love that last night in the hotel room."

"We have freedom and equality," Cassie told her, "which is more than many people have. Grace and I have found love. One day, you will too."

"What if I already did?"

"The real question is, do you still love Adam?" Cassie forced Joan to look into her eyes.

She pondered it for a few minutes. "He hurt me once too often. I loved him once, and he'll always be my first love. But he won't be my last."

"Thatagirl," Grace grinned. "Rove didn't know what he was missing."

**I'm not trying to hide these things from the man I love today **

**But I'm a better woman for him, thanks to my yesterdays**

Before they could continue, there was a knock on the bedroom door. "Can I come in?" The question made everyone jump in surprise.

"Looks like lover-boy's back, Frasier," Grace commented quietly.

"Come in, Kev." Cassie opened the door before he could.

Joan and Grace put the beads and the champagne cork back in the box and locked it while Kevin and Cassie exchanged a kiss.

"That's so sweet I may need a dentist," Grace grumbled.

"Now you know how the rest of us have felt watching you and Luke." Joan watched her old friend's mouth drop open in surprise.

"We are not that bad."

"No, you're right." Joan watched as the blonde smirked triumphantly. "You're worse."

"Hey!"

Neither noticed that the 'lovebirds' had broken apart and were watching in amusement.

"So what's the box that Joan's holding?" Kevin whispered, not wanting to break up the entertainment.

"My past. Joan found it when she was rooting through the top drawer of the dresser."

"Ah." Kevin looked at her for a moment and decided to press. "Would you tell me about what's inside?"

"Tonight, I promise." Kevin's job had transferred him to Annapolis several months before. Nominally, he shared an apartment with Luke. However, most knew that Luke was to be found in Grace's bed most nights, and Cassie slept in Kevin's bed. That was, everyone but their parental figures knew.

Joan just fled the girls' apartment most of the time; the librarians at the University of Maryland knew her by name.

"Please cut it out, you two." Joan forcibly separated the two of them. "No groping in front of your sister, Kev."

"How come Luke doesn't get that rule with Grace?" He looked confused.

"He does," she growled.

**So now I try to give more than I take **

**And I bite my tongue; fight the urge to say it's my way **

**Or no way at all**

**And now I cherish love a whole lot more**

**'Cause of what's **

**In the back of the bottom drawer**

They were all gathered in the living room the next day, watching reruns of Will and Grace when the phone rang.

"You have reached the second circle of Hell, how may I direct your call?" Grace asked the person the other end. "Just a second…" she covered the mouthpiece. "Frasier, phone's for you."

"Thanks Grace. You have most likely scared away a member of my study group."

"Don't feel bad, Cass," Kevin told her with a sigh. "That's better than how she answered the phone when my boss called the other day."

"Do tell," Joan snickered.

"Barney's S&M Shop. If you're a sub, press one. If you're a dom, press two. If you have no particular preference, press three," Grace parroted as she handed the phone off to Cassie.

Everyone but Kevin cracked up. Cassie answered the phone in between fits of laughter. "Cassandra speaking, I apologize for my roommate."

"Don't worry, cuz," Buffy's voice came over the line. "I don't mind."

"Hey, B. Long time since you called last. What's new?"

"We're getting married on the next Summer Solstice."

Cassie sucked in a breath. "So soon? That's right after you graduate from law school. Shouldn't you wait longer?"

"It's ten months from now, Cass." Buffy's voice almost came across as calm. "Besides, Mom will want to take over the planning. You know that."

"I thought you always planned to elope in Cancun?"

"Plans have a way of getting messed up around my mother." Then her voice became a great deal more cheerful. "You're my maid of honor."

"Why isn't Willow?"

"She said she'd probably screw up the speech thingy that maids of honor have to give. She also said she'd puke all over me if I made her be the maid of honor."

"Lovely." Cassie groaned. "I somehow know that I can't refuse."

Her cousin laughed. "You refuse, I stake you."

"That'll mean you killing a human. You're against that, remember?"

"I won't stake you in the heart. But I will stake you so that it'll be very painful."

"Can I bring my boyfriend?" Cassie watched Kevin's eyebrows shoot up, and heard Joan let out a gusty sigh.

"Of course. This doesn't mean that we won't hurt him though."

"Don't hurt him. In fact, don't jump to any conclusions until you meet him." Cassie could just picture how badly her family meeting Kevin could end.

"You aren't dating some cross-dressing girl, are you?" The worry in Buffy's voice made her cousin laugh.

"No, I'm not. Uncle Jack made you ask, didn't he?"

"Yeah." Cassie could practically hear the blonde shrug. "The adults have been worried since you haven't provided a name, much less details."

"You realize that we're all adults now, right?"

"I mean the adult adults."

"And the sad part is that that actually makes sense." Cassie smiled slightly. "So who are the bridesmaids?"

"Willow, Tara, and Anya," Buffy said.

"Wait, Willow can deal with being a bridesmaid, but not the maid of honor?"

"She's my best friend, but I do not try and figure her out."

"Fair enough," was Cassie's reply. "I'll talk to you later then?"

"Count on it."

After she'd hung up, Cassie buried her face in her hands. "I'm thinking unkind thoughts about Willow, and I don't care."

"Why?" Joan asked. "What did your redheaded cousin do?"

"She backed out of being Buffy's maid of honor, so I'm fulfilling that role." She glared. "Notice that I'm not happy."

"We're noticing." Luke raised an eyebrow. "Does this mean that you and Kevin won't be occupying the apartment tonight?"

"You're still being forced to use Grace's bedroom." Cassie and Kevin spoke at the same time.

"Dang it," the youngest Girardi sighed.

"So when's the wedding?" Grace asked. "That way, we know when to plan Kevin's funeral."

"Summer Solstice," Cassie told them. "But don't worry; they'd only kill someone I didn't love."

With that, she walked into the room she and the others had been giggling in only the day before.

And Joan Girardi snuck out the door, knowing that God would happen along. She didn't know what form He'd use, but He'd be there. Or She would.

She'd completed her mission. Admittedly, she hadn't thought that it would set the stage for Cassie being the maid of honor at a wedding. However, she figured out that Life rarely made sense.

That seemed to go double for anything that God decided to have her interfere in.

_Author notes: Please review? I'm begging you to. I like reviews, and I don't write as well when I don't have them. glances at the drivel she's just written See? It could be much better but no one would review. It can't be **that** bad._

_And okay, it was fluffy and not so much humor. Okay, so the next part won't have much humor either; it's angst. But Buffy's wedding will be funny. And so will the honeymoon. Promise. There's other planned fics after that, but I really don't remember what they are._

_But review, or you won't get to read them!_


	6. Can't Take the Honkytonk out of the Girl

Title: Can't Take the Honky Tonk out of the Girl

Author: Maria/Lady Maria

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: I do not own BtVS, SG-1, JoA, or the song, Can't Take the Honky Tonk out the Girl. The first belongs to Joss, the second MGM, the third CBS or someone, and the fourth is Brooks and Dunn.

Author's Note: Sorry this took so long…

**Yeah, Connie came back for her second cousin's wedding.**

"So Cassie will make it, right?" Joyce was flitting about like a hummingbird on crack, or rather, like she was the mother of the bride.

"Yes, Mother," Buffy said impatiently. "My maid of honor will make it, even if it kills her."

"At the rate Buffy's going," Anya chirped helpfully, "that will happen. Most likely, she'll be bludgeoned to death with a shovel."

"No," Tara disagreed, "that's saved for potential spouses. Cassie will just find inanimate objects hurled at her." The witch was sitting on Buffy's counter, swinging her legs and gazing at the familiar apartment.

There were boxes everywhere; Buffy and Gunn had bought and purchased a small house just outside of L.A that Gunn had already been using when he wasn't at the Hyperion. Buffy was in the middle of moving in with him. She'd used this apartment while she'd attended UC-LA for law school but the house had been bought nearly three years before with the day they moved in together in mind.

That way, they would both be able to get into L.A. to go to work but be far enough out for peace of mind. Gunn was content to continue working for Angel even though both he and Buffy had reservations about what would happen once the souled vampire found out about the imminent marriage. And Buffy had been hired on by Smith and Klaxon as a junior partner; she'd been an intern for several months before graduation.

Willow watched her extended family with a faint smile. This was what she missed, when it was just her and Anya back in college. This was what she missed now that it was just her, alone in a great big East Coast city working as a computer programmer. Sure, she had a semi-steady boyfriend, but it wasn't the same thing as this chaos. This was home to her.

"She says she's bringing her boyfriend," Buffy sing-songed.

"She's back with Dominic?" Joyce looked interested.

Willow stared at her in amazement. She'd thought all the adults knew about the mystery boyfriend. "No way would she ever be back with Dom. But this new boyfriend, we don't really know much about him. We just know his name's Kevin."

"And they've been together for like a year or so," Anya volunteered. "They have enjoyable orgasms from what I understand."

Buffy picked up her purse as she stood up. "Guess we'll find out more soon. She's coming in on the four-thirty flight and Kevin's coming too."

**First time she'd been home in a year or two **

Across the city, Angel Investigations had a unique issue to deal with. Cordelia had had a vision of two young women—both around fifteen or so—falling out of two joined portals several hours before. In the vision, the younger one had been featured strongly, and the older one had only been glimpsed.

The seer had, however, been adamant that the older one was a younger Faith. Not by much, she kept maintaining, but still younger than when she'd died.

"Has anyone been able to find Gunn?" Wesley asked irritably.

Cordelia shook her head from where she stood near the wall of an abandoned warehouse. "He turned his cell phone off."

"Why he and Angel even have cell phones escapes me," Fred commented.

"It's not my fault I don't understand that piece of…of…of technology!" The vampire burst out.

"You say 'technology' like it's a bad thing."

Angel stayed in the warehouse as the others skittered towards the warehouse next door to grab the two teenagers. Then, in a quiet voice, he muttered, "That's because it is. We got along without it just fine before, you know."

Out in the warehouse that Cordelia had seen, the four 'detectives' stood above the two unconscious girls.

"I told you that she was Faith."

Wesley nodded. "That's quite true. However, it still doesn't tell us who the other is."

The brown haired teen had just opened her eyes. "My name is Dawn Summers, and something tells me that I'm not in my dimension anymore." Under her breath, she muttered almost sub vocally, "Thank the Powers that Be it worked."

"Summers?" Wesley asked curiously. "Cordelia, do you know—?"

"Summers?" Faith had just opened her eyes. "Linda told me about Buffy Summers."

"You haven't met Buffy?" Cordelia looked shocked. For that matter, so did Dawn.

"How would I meet a girl who died over a year ago? Some dude called the Master drowned her. Kendra got to do the cleanup." Faith looked very confused. And then her eyes widened. "That spell…That spell Kakistos fired at me…It called upon the powers of the key…Was that why I ended up here?"

"What?" It was Dawn who spoke this time. "My older sister died at the Master's hands, but not permanently. Not until last year, when she died to save the world…" Her voice trailed off as she wondered if she should finish. If she should tell of the demons who had come that summer intent on enslaving the world. They'd killed the wholesomely good witches first, those witches that refused to submit to their cause second. And then they'd started in on the humans. If she hadn't been the Key, if she hadn't bled, if Willow hadn't told her what to do before her death…She'd be dead too. Dead at sixteen years old.

It was not something she wanted to contemplate especially while looking at the bitch that had pretty much ruined her life. Only, she knew that this wasn't the same Faith who'd refused to leave her jail cell to help save the world. This Faith…she was different. Different than she was in the memories the monks had made.

"That happened here too," Cordelia said slowly. "Then Kendra was called; Drusilla killed her. That called our Faith. Due to extenuating circumstances, the Council decided to kill Faith shortly after the Class of '99 graduated. That called Annabelle; she's the Hellmouth Slayer now that Little Miss Lawyer's got a life." She mentally added, _"Not that we know what's going on in it."_

Faith sucked in a breath. "I'm dead?"

"My sister's a _lawyer_?" Dawn looked nearly as shell-shocked as Faith.

"Come along," Wesley said slowly. "We should get back to the Hyperion. We can discuss this then."

"Fine by me," Dawn shrugged.

"Five-by-five," Faith sighed. "As long as you tell me what those extenuating circumstances were."

"I think you killed someone here and went evil," Dawn said candidly. "You did in my dimension."

"Oh my god." Faith blanched. "I am so sorry."

"No big," Dawn smiled, "you're not the same person you were here or in my dimension. Different things happened, you know?"

And Cordelia wondered how Buffy, any Buffy, had a sister, a sister who had known that she might end up in a different dimension.

**Just in time for the rehearsal dinner,**

Her eyes flitted across the airport and came to land on her cousin. Small and petite as ever, Cassie noted. And still connected at the lips to her long time boyfriend. Striding up to the two, Cassie shoved them apart. "Save it, Weapons-Boy."

"How did I get that name?" Gunn asked for the ten thousandth time in two years.

"Look up your last name," Cassie snapped. The two had gotten off to a rocky start to begin with, and it had barely improved. Cassie had never thought that Gunn deserved Buffy after how the two's romance had gone. "Of course, I doubt you're that smart though."

"Why did the hellspawn come?" Gunn looked at his fiancé with a raised eyebrow.

"Don't call my cousin the hellspawn," Buffy sighed. "Cassie, stop insulting my future husband."

"Key word there is future," she snarled quietly. "That doesn't guarantee that he'll actually survive to see the wedding."

Kevin just tried to blend into the background. He had no doubt that Buffy, who seemed very homicidal, was going to find him at any moment and start in on him.

"Yeah, well your boyfriend will be dead meat by the wedding," the bride said pleasantly. "Where is he?"

"Hiding behind me," Cassie sighed. "She really won't kill you, Kev."

"I don't kill humans," the Slayer spoke up. "I will maim you though. It might relieve my stress. Who knew that weddings could be so stressful?"

"I told you we should have just eloped and told your family at a later date." Gunn rolled his eyes.

"You still haven't told your colleagues that you even know me, much less that you're marrying me. So shut up, okay?"

"Some things don't change," Cassie laughed quietly. "Let's try this again." She hugged both her cousin and Gunn. "Long time no see. I missed you."

"You missed me?" Gunn's eyebrows shot up to the edge of his forehead.

"A girl's got to have a hobby." Cassie shrugged. "Mine is picking on you. Without you around, I can't pick on you. Ergo, I get bored with no hobby."

"Some people collect stamps, my cousin picks on my fiancé." Buffy buried her face in her hands. "Can't you find a new hobby?"

"Why?" The brunette cracked a smile. "It's too much fun when he's around."

"I have just as much fun teasing the hellspawn," Gunn tried to reassure Buffy. "So what kind of coward are you dating that he hides behind you?"

"What I want to know is who is short enough to actually be able to hide behind her," Buffy snorted.

"You are," Cassie snapped.

"I'm also only 5'2"." She glared at where she thought the mysterious Kevin was. "Come out; come out where ever you are. Otherwise, I might just have to hurt you badly enough that they'll be billing you as the human pretzel at the Ringling Brothers Circus."

Cassie laughed. "Not unless you want Xander to know that you're planning on setting him up with Anya."

"You wouldn't dare."

"Try me," she challenged.

"Come on out, Kev," Cassie sighed. "I'll tell Uncle Jack that she once compared him to a dog if she hurts you."

Kevin wasn't certain how reassuring that was supposed to be, but he wheeled out anyway. "Hi."

Buffy's jaw dropped. This was not the type of guy she could picture her younger cousin dating. Her eyes were drawn to the wheelchair first and she didn't stop staring until Gunn smacked her lightly across her butt. "Hey!"

"What, I'm allowed to do that?" Gunn asked.

"Not in public!"

Cassie snickered. "That's one way you can always tell Anya from Buffy. Anya doesn't care if she has full-blown sex in front of strangers."

"I think Anya has had full-blown sex in front of strangers," Buffy laughed. "I'm Cassie's older cousin, Buffy. Hurt Cass and die. Painfully."

Kevin gulped as Gunn laid a calming hand on the blonde's shoulder. "I'm Buffy's fiancé, Charles Gunn. Welcome to the madness." He sized the other man up for a minute. "You haven't started screaming yet from the insanity levels. I'm impressed."

"I suppose you did?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

"No, this seems rather normal to me."

**That crazy Connie wasn't wearing any shoes. **

**Yeah, she lives in L.A. she flies to New York City;**

"Has anyone found Gunn?" Cordy slammed the Hyperion's door and tapped her foot impatiently. "Because he's still not answering his cell phone!"

"Who's Gunn?" Dawn asked quietly. She and Faith had been introduced to Wesley, Angel and Cordy. (For Dawn, the fact that the other Faith had never met any of them was kind of disconcerting.) Fred, at least, neither of them had ever met.

"Who's asking?" Gunn strolled in, throwing pieces of mail at Cordy. "Miss Secretary, I believe this is part of your job."

She just glared at him. "Where were you?"

"It doesn't matter where I was," he shrugged. He did not need to get into a fight about this.

As he replied, she muttered under her breath, "Junk, junk, bill, ooo, letter for Wesley, letter from the Burkles…multiple invitations to a wedding?"

Cordy's head snapped up and glowered at him dangerously. For a few minutes, the invitations were forgotten. "It doesn't matter where you were?"

"No, it doesn't."

"Actually," Fred spoke up, "it does. We rescued two girls while you were off, and you haven't even met them yet."

Gunn rolled his eyes. Like moving wasn't stressful as it was, like his soon to be mother-in-law wasn't bad enough…He didn't want to deal with Fred and Cordy. "Fine, fine. Where are they and how are we helping them?"

"Right here," Dawn spoke up. "I'm Dawn Summers, dimensionally displaced fifteen year old girl. From what I understand, I don't have a duplicate here, so I'm staying."

"And my duplicate's dead," Faith spoke up quietly. "Faith Ayers, fifteen year old hit by a freaky spell."

"We have to figure out what we're doing with them," Wesley explained. "The Council will not be happy with Miss Ayers's reappearance, and I'm not certain how Buffy's family will react to Dawn."

"Now that we've got that out of the way," Cordy asked slowly, "who in the world is Carlie Gunn'ther?"

"And why is Charles the only one who didn't get an invitation?" Fred asked. "Everyone else got one, even me. 'Joyce and Rupert Giles cordially invite us to celebrate the nuptials of their daughter, Elisabetha Anne Summerland, to Carlie Gunn'ther."

"Can I see one of those for a moment?" Gunn asked slowly. He had a horrible suspicion. Once he had an invitation in his hand, the color seeped out of his skin. "I can't believe this."

"What can't you believe?" Fred looked at him strangely. "It's a wedding invitation."

"Yeah, one that is so full of typos, Joyce is going to go postal. I think they let Jack write it. And he probably was just finishing up a report, and he wrote it, and he was probably half-asleep. And then the people at the printing place probably couldn't read his handwriting, and they just guessed what the hell was written, and they didn't call anyone to decipher it, and no one will be able to figure out who's getting married, and no one will show up, and then Joyce will say that I'm unfit to marry her daughter, and Mr. Giles will get all Ripper-ish, and I'll never be able see Buffy again, let alone marry her!" Gunn knew he was babbling, and he normally didn't do such a thing. However, after a week with various Summers-Giles-O'Neill females, he was running on less than two hours of sleep. That and he'd officially seen and heard too much of Willow.

"Excuse me!" Every female currently in Hyperion asked in unison as they stood and stared.

"Invitation to my wedding," he sighed. "Buffy's uncle was probably the one who wrote it, and that's why it's so confusing."

"Your wedding," Cordelia repeated in disbelief. "You're getting married…to Buffy Summers!"

"Do you have a problem with that?"

Dawn watched in absolute amazement. "I've only seen Angel for a couple of minutes, but he seems like he was back in my dimension. You know, all broody, and woe-is-me-ish. And more than anything, I get the vibe that he's still totally head over heels for Buffy, the same way he was in my dimension pre-Cordelia. So I have only one question. Has anyone told him that his dream girl is getting married?"

"Oh shit." Cordy shook her head. "I guess I should call Buffy and tell her that her groom may not be able to make it to the wedding."

"What wedding?" Angel asked as he walked into the lobby. "Who's getting married?"

"Well…uhhh…it's…umm…Buffy," Fred tried to break it to him gently.

**That woman's been around the world. **

**You can take that girl out of the honky tonk, **

**But you can't take the honky tonk, **

"Buffy." Angel managed to pack every emotion he was feeling into that one word. Pain, anguish, and anger bled out of the name.

"Yes," Gunn smiled nervously, "I'm marrying Buffy."

"You don't even know her." The vampire stared at him in disbelief.

A knock at the door interrupted them. Cordelia literally licked her lips. "Maybe it's a paying customer."

"Hi." The young man shifted his weight nervously. "Gunn, she's nuts."

"Which she are you talking about? Because when I left B and the hellspawn at the apartment, every person there was female…"

"And they were all bonkers," Jon laughed. "My family, ya'know, the one you're marrying into, is all nuts. The women are just crazier than the rest of us."

"Then which one is so very nuts?"

"Aunt Joyce is driving me to seek outside intervention."

Gunn buried his head in his hands. "Let me guess. Your dad is lying in about sixty pieces because of his invitation mistake."

"He certainly w-word he was." Like the rest of the clan, Jon didn't use the word 'wish' in any way, shape or form.

"W-word?" Fred asked softly.

"W-I-S-H," Dawn spelled out quietly. "I think that's what it stands for anyway. And because they aren't saying the word itself, all those nice demons can't exploit them."

"Exactly," Jon and Gunn said together.

"How long have you known her?" Angel asked suddenly. When Gunn just stared at him, the vampire violently shoved him into the nearby wall. "ANSWER ME!"

"Since she was seventeen," he choked out. "I met her when she ran away after sending you to Hell. She needed comfort, and I gave her the only comfort I could."

Jon snickered. "And my father has never quite forgiven you for that. Neither has Uncle Giles."

"She needed comforting; she needed some sort of friend," Gunn defended himself.

"She didn't need a fuck-fest," Jon said tactlessly.

"She needed to know someone cared. And it's not like we didn't use protection."

Cordelia's jaw dropped. "Are you implying that you showed kindness and lavished comfort on Buffy by having sex with her?"

"Basically." Gunn started to turn blue as the vampire tightened his hold on his employee's neck.

"So what, you went from fucking to friends to getting married?" Faith looked at him in shocked admiration. "I think I might like this girl."

"We fucked, we became friends, we continued sleeping together, we dated, we fucked some more, we broke up, we continued to fuck, we realized we loved each other, we got back together, we continued the previous arrangement, and then we got engaged."

"Buffy wouldn't do something like that," Angel growled.

"Don't pass judgment on her," Gunn growled. "You barely knew her. You knew the Slayer in her; you were attracted to how normal she still seemed to be. But you never really got to know the woman inside her."

"How can you say that?" But Angel dropped his employee to the floor anyway; his pride was wounded but he was intrigued.

"Because it's true," Jon stated softly. "My dad and my uncle aren't happy about the circumstances, but they know that B and Weapons-Boy love each other. And they trust Weapons-Boy. That's something your demon shattered with Uncle Giles. Having to send you to Hell nearly killed Buffy. She took off, got her head on straight, and Gunn was a big part of that. Besides, Oz trusts him."

"And that's come to be an important stamp of approval in B's family," Gunn noted. "Course, when B was crying her eyes out one night, that didn't stop him from calling me and threatening the hell out of me if I didn't get my black ass to Northwestern."

"B's always wondered why you came that next day when you were obviously upset."

"Having a pissed off werewolf demanding you get there is a great motivator."

"Don't doubt it." Jon smirked at him. "It's about time for everyone to subject themselves to the horror that is the rehearsal dinner."

"Wait," Cordelia said slowly. "Why did you wait so long to send out the invitations?"

"Most everyone was invited through word of mouth." Jon shrugged. "Just show up with smiles and gifts and B'll be happy. She's not too keen on this big wedding, but Joyce can be a bitch when she wants to be."

Gunn was still staring at the two transplanted girls. "You want to come to the rehearsal? I think they'll like you."

Faith skittered back. "Dawn says I did something bad in her dimension and thinks I did that here too. Why would they want me there?"

"And Wesley says he isn't certain the Summers will accept me." Dawn glared at Gunn and Jon defiantly.

"Well, you aren't the same as the Faith here was. The Faith here was messed up in ways you don't seem to be." Gunn watched the girl absorb that.

Jon answered Dawn's accusation. "Girl, I don't know where Wes or you've been living, but this family will take you in before you can say 'Yeahsureyoubetcha.' Ditto with Miss Faithy."

The girls locked gazes and, as a unit, nodded slowly. It was Faith who spoke up. "Then let's get going. We can't possibly be late to Lawyer-girl and her stud muffin's rehearsal."

Jon laughed. "We'll see the rest of you at the wedding, a week from now."

"Wait, why are you taking so many days between the two?" Fred looked slightly confused.

"We have to be able to have the bachelor and bachelorette parties," Gunn and Jon chorused as the door closed behind them.

**Take the honky tonk out of the girl.**

**Ooh.**

"Why does one have to rehearse the vows?" Anya asked. "Everyone can already repeat them word for word."

"Don't ask me," Willow complained. "I haven't figured it out either."

"At least you figured out your feelings for Oz," Tara bitched good-naturedly. Although the young witch had had a crush on the redhead for a while, the relationship had developed more of a sisterly feeling to it.

Willow laughed. "Find yourself a girl, Tare. God knows you need it."

"Gee, thanks."

About this time, Buffy ran into the living room. Somehow, she managed to avoid the boxes littering the room despite her breakneck speed. "Help! Fashion crisis!"

"You look like Will," Anya stated bluntly.

"Who the hell's Will?" Buffy asked. "Because if I looked like Willow right now, I wouldn't be panicking."

"No, you look like William Shakespeare."

"Great, I look like a dead guy." She tapped her foot impatiently. She liked the gauzy silver shirt, but the clingy black pants (the ONLY thing she could find that wasn't dirty or packed) just did not go with the outfit.

The ex-demon rolled her eyes. "Don't believe the hype. Not only did the guy suck as a playwright, he wasn't that great in bed either."

Tara stared at her. "You slept with William Shakespeare? We are talking about the man who wrote Romeo and Juliet, right? _That_ William Shakespeare?"

"I didn't sleep with him. I cursed him. And his son, and his brother." Anya thought for a minute more. "I think it carried over to his third cousin on his mother's side too!"

Willow blinked. "Anya, as far as historians know, Shakespeare did not have any children or any close family."

"What do you think the curse was? He was a lousy lay."

"I thought you didn't sleep with him!" Cassie, who had been quietly observing since she'd finished getting ready, muttered in confusion.

Buffy had, by this time, managed to scrounge up one of Willow's short skirts. "Tell me this is better!"

Anya tilted her head sideways. "Well, not only do you look like you want to have orgasms, you look like a blonde Lorelai!"

Cassie blinked. "You watch Gilmore Girls?"

"Who doesn't?"

**Well, that dinner broke up at around 11:30.**

**The boys went out to do what boys do.**

"Who had this brilliant idea?" Giles was staring at the males in the wedding party with a look of revulsion. Somehow, both he and Joyce had ended up here as sort of chaperones. Of course, the children didn't actually _need_ permission anymore, but they always seemed to forget that part.

"B and Gunn thought it was a good idea when Cassie suggested it." Xander shrugged. "I can't say I blame them."

His father figure spluttered incoherently. Joyce actually said what both of them were thinking. "The two of them didn't _need_ to get matching tattoos!"

That was about the point when Buffy turned to show off her new artwork. "Mom, what do you think of the tattoo?"

Gunn stood next to her, so that the tattoos, which were both located on the small of their owner's back, were both in Joyce and Giles's line of sight.

The parents just stared at the scrolled crosses with the words "Love lasts" written inside them. Proving that they weren't quite matching, there were flowers and hearts surrounding Buffy's while Gunn's had arrows and fire around it.

"They're…unique," Joyce managed. "Let's leave the men to their bachelor party now."

"But Mommy!" Buffy whined.

"Boys' night out," she stated firmly. "We're leaving!"

The bride sulked. "Fine."

**Connie said, "Hey girls, let's huddle up.**

**"'Round somethin', 'bout a hundred proof."**

"Well?" Cassie raised an expectant eyebrow.

"They're making an escape route. I don't know what it's for, but they're making an escape route." Willow collapsed on the floor of Buffy's half-unpacked home office.

"Are we being attacked?" Anya raised an eyebrow from where she was unpacking boxes of law books.

"Gee, is the British coming?" Cassie asked dryly.

Anya raised an eyebrow. "I could have sworn that it was one by sea, two by land…or maybe it was the opposite…Paul Revere was rather naughty…But I know it wasn't hole by plumbing! What do you think, Will?"

Willow didn't respond. She just let out a moan. "Owwwwww."

"Don't bang your head on the chair if you don't want to get hurt." Buffy had just come in from where she was adding her stuff to Gunn's in the bedroom.

"I thought I was banging my head on the cushy part." Willow shrugged and tried not to admit how strange she sounded.

"Have you been taking stupid pills again?" Tara had been unpacking the few additional kitchen supplies and had come upstairs to see what she could do next since she had finished quickly.

"No, there were too many side effects. I mean, I was stupid." Willow smiled as she retorted with the familiar punch line. No one was certain who'd come up with the joke, but it had stuck.

"Owww." This time, it was Buffy groaning from the bedroom.

"See? Why are you getting on me for banging my head on the chair? You were banging it on the dresser." Willow smirked at her sister who had come back into the office.

"You were trying to hit the soft and cushy part; I _was_ trying to get hurt so that I'd go into a coma and not wake up until everything was normal."

"It didn't work." Anya stated the obvious.

"I guess things will never be normal." Dawn added her two cents as she and Faith came upstairs from the oversized living room where they'd been organizing DVDs, CDs, and other similar things. In addition, they'd been arranging knickknacks and hanging pictures.

"The bathroom will never be fixed either." Faith sighed as she brought their focus back to what had started the conversation.

"It's been four days of four different plumbing-related issues. I think it's time to call a real plumber," Tara chimed in. The plumbing issues had been going on for two days before the wedding rehearsal.

"Uncle Jack and Teal'c won't be happy," Cassie noted.

"No," Daniel interrupted them, "but the bathroom will get fixed."

Buffy sighed. "That bathroom hasn't worked right since Gunn moved in. Uncle Jack and Teal'c are not helping its issues."

Everyone flinched at a louder noise.

Faith sighed. "It sounds like the wall's caving in."

"This wall?" Daniel asked in alarm.

"No, the bathroom wall." Buffy rolled her eyes. "I do not want to know what the escape route is for anymore; I just want them to stop before they destroy my house. Hey, maybe we could get really, really drunk and ignore them!"

"Amen to that, sister!" Willow muttered darkly.

Her fiancé walked in from where he'd been organizing the garage so that two cars could actually fit in it. "I called a real plumber about six hours ago and he just showed up."

"What does he think about the holes in the walls?" Anya smirked at the pained expression on Gunn's face.

"The two idiots actually did something right. Something about being able to reach the pipes."

"Dear God, they are banned from using power tools in or around this house ever again."

Gunn just looked at Buffy. "From what you've told me, that won't stop them."

"The fact that they actually did something right for once will just feed their egos," Daniel sighed from his place on the computer room floor. "Do you think the Goa'uld will let us come live with them?"

"Forget going outside the solar system; Uncle Jack will be able to track us there. Let's just go talk to the Devil. I think I amuse him so maybe he'll let us stay there for a while."

"Why do you think you amuse him?" Gunn looked at Buffy strangely.

"I'm marrying you and my uncle and an alien were making an escape route. I think he's amused."

Everyone just cracked up at the expression on Gunn's face as they all went back to what they'd been doing.

**She lives in L.A. she flies to New York City**

**That woman's been around the world.**

"Hey, has anyone shared the fire incident?" Anya took another pull of beer.

"There is no need to bring that up," Sam laughed, drinking more beer herself. Most of the family was in Buffy and Gunn's living room, dealing with wedding presents. Some of them were perfectly normal, like Janet's gift of pots and pans. Others were more…unique, like the beanbag and foam-filled furniture that most everyone was busy filling up. "It's completely forgotten."

"What in the hell is the 'fire incident'?" Gunn asked. He was fairly certain he'd never heard this story.

"Buffy hasn't told you?" Tara smirked.

"I haven't told him what?" The woman in question brought in more of the fruit shaped beanbags. "By the way, remind me to shoot Ms. Clarita. She figured since she's now my aunt by marriage, she should send a wedding present. Now, don't get me wrong. These beanbags are going to be really cool furniture. But why couldn't the beans already be in the stupid bags?"

"We were asking him if he'd heard about the fire thing." Willow cuddled up against Oz, clearly marking him as 'hers'. The two were busy filling up a foam-filled coffee table.

Buffy groaned and sank down onto the floor. "Oh, God."

"That bad?" Gunn rubbed her shoulders. "I guess you don't have to tell me about it."

"Oh, we'll still tell you," Anya said happily. She was having fun stuffing the guest bed.

"It will indeed be fun watching her blush in mortification." Teal'c said this so gravely that Cassie started to snicker. Watching him plunge his arms into a large, green ottoman and carefully deposit beans into it didn't help her hysterical laughter.

"Fine, I lit my hair on fire, okay?"

"I was graduating from high school," Cassie volunteered more details.

"And?" Dawn looked up from where she was filling a giant pineapple beanbag chair.

"And she threatened my then-boyfriend, Dominic, with castration by a flaming wooden spoon."

"I pulled my hand back to brush at my hair, and caught it on fire," she mumbled. "End of story, okay?"

Gunn's eyes twinkled. "I love you, dear."

"Don't even start." She had gone from embarrassed to bitchy in 0.2 seconds.

"I wouldn't dream of it, dawg." Nevertheless, the mischief in his eyes promised that he wasn't going to forget it any time in the near future.

"Don't call me that," she retorted.

"Call you what?"

Faith threw a handful of beans at Buffy and idly remarked, "They're so sweet." Then she returned to stuffing an oversized apple.

"Yeah," Dawn groused as the two lovebirds abandoned filling up a giant strawberry in favor of French kissing, "sweet enough to give me cavities. I really can't take this."

"Welcome to how we've felt for years," Cassie grinned. She sipped at a wine cooler as she tried to get the damn beans into an oversized black beanbag couch that was going to go downstairs. "Why do these cling to everything?"

"I have no idea," Janet groused. She was busy putting away the rest of the wedding gifts and listing which people had sent what so that Buffy and Gunn could send out thank-you cards. She was also busy brushing off beans and foam from the gifts.

"Do you think that using hairspray would eliminate the static cling?" Dawn asked seriously.

"I don't know," Faith shrugged. "Try it."

"Just don't use the aerosol can around fire," Sam called with a laugh.

"Aw, spoil my fun will you."

**You can take that girl out of the honky tonk,**

"You know girls," Anya grinned at the others, "I think that we should get a chance to go out barhopping ourselves." She grinned just a little more

Buffy looked up from where she was scratching behind Cordelia's cat's ears. The tortoiseshell was a recent addition to Cordelia's household. Dennis had taken a liking to the kitten, and the kitten to the ghost. "But the cats aren't of legal age!"

Fred laughed at that one and corrected her. "Actually, there's no legal age for cats." The woman had grown up since coming back from Pylea.

Cordelia looked at the other female members of the wedding party. "We are not taking my cat drinking." Glasses slammed behind her. "Dennis, it's final. Shut up."

"Don't tell the ghost to shut up," Fred sighed. "It's not fair to him. After all, he is the only male in the house."

"Talk about estrogen overload," Cassie quipped. Then her eyes narrowed. "Well, if we can't take your cat drinking, can we put a cape on it?"

"Super kitty!" the bride-to-be squealed, knowing what Cassie was cornering Cordelia into.

"No," the former cheerleader snapped. "My cat is not going to be 'super kitty.' I would sooner see you take Liberty drinking than have her be 'super kitty.'" Her eyes widened the moment she finished.

"We'll nix the cape and add the alcohol then." Willow smirked uncharacteristically. She'd been behaving slightly different for the previous few days and everyone had the feeling it was because she and Oz were back to having a fling. After all, that was how their relationship worked. On one moment and off the next. The Gunn and Buffy method of dating had spread to Oz and Willow. "Come here kitty, kitty, kitty."

"I said the cat's not going with us!" Cordelia screamed.

"Bitchy much?" the blonde slayer asked. "It won't hurt the cat, Cordelia. It might even help relax her."

Liberty head butted her owner and stared mournfully up at her. Cordelia cracked with only one look from her cat. "Fine, Liberty can go. I suppose Cassie was going to let Sel'mac come along anyway."

"Of course I was." She glared at the other woman. Cassie had had Sel'mac since just after her high school graduation. She'd decided to name the pure black cat after the Tokra because she did not want to come up with an original name. "I'm not anal retentive like you are."

"Oh, both of you be quiet. We're going to party because we and our cats are going to get drunk. Let's conga, girls!" Anya and Buffy started the conga line to the bar with everyone behind them. Both Cassie and Fred had a cat each and were making the kitties do the hand motions. Every once in a while as they tried to leave, Dennis and Joyce could hear 'Ow, she scratched me.'

Sam stared after them in bemusement. "Like a bride to be on sugar isn't bad enough, the kids make her worse. I pity the bartender wherever they end up."

Dennis made the lights flicker on and off in the kitchen. "Yes, Dennis. I'll teach you how to make brownies. They're for the reception which is why they'll have plenty of alcohol in them."

The lights flickered in rapid tempo as Dawn and Faith relaxed on Cordelia's couch with identical wry grins. "Trust me, we'll need the liquor. We just have to save some for the brownies."

They then watched the group suddenly come back. Dawn laughed. "Finally realized that cats are considered unsanitary in most establishments?"

"Yeah," Buffy shrugged. "We're trying to think of an alternative, but I'm kinda confused on this."

"What about that karaoke bar all of you told me about?" Sam asked. "If the owner's a demon, he might not have a big of problem with it."

"She so has a point," Faith shrugged.

"That's a good idea," Cordelia agreed. "So let's get going."

**But you can't take the honky tonk,**

**Take the honky tonk out of the girl.**

**Ooh.**

Late that night, as Cordelia and Fred drunkenly sang the lyrics to "I got you babe," Cassie, Anya, and Tara helped Buffy supervise the cats. Willow had taken off early in favor of spending quality time with Oz.

Lorne walked over. "Not often that I get cats in here."

"They needed to get drunk as much as the rest of us," Buffy commented cynically.

Cassie snickered. "There's nothing like having a hangover at one's wedding."

"I'm not drinking," the bride countered. "Liberty's having my margarita."

Lorne raised an eyebrow. "Liberty's not actually drinking it, is she?"

Buffy shook her head. "She didn't like the taste."

"Good." Lorne glanced at Anya. "Is she always like this?"

"It's the night before her wedding. She's not getting enough orgasms right now."

"She's depressed," the demon pointed out. "The last time I saw her, she was quite hyperactive."

Cassie laughed. "I remember that. It was during the funeral."

"The funeral?" Tara thought she knew what was going on but she wasn't certain.

"Giles Senior's funeral," Cassie elaborated. "Anyway, I don't think Buffy wants to get married."

"I want to get married," the person in question wailed. "I just don't want to get married with everyone there! I did not want a huge ceremony."

The others exchanged glances before Lorne spoke. "Okay, so what do you want to do?"

**Well, at nine a.m., out in front of that church,**

**People goin' nuts looking for the groom.**

**Somebody says, "Hey, by the way, where's Connie?"**

**She's run off with that boy to Cancun.**

"Where's my daughter?" Joyce asked nervously.

Cassie smiled; she, Tara and Anya were the only ones who knew of the plan. "She's coming."

"She's late!"

"When isn't she late?" Willow grinned as the rest of the females laughed in agreement.

Just then, the groomsmen came running out of the church. Daniel was the first to gasp something out. "Has anyone seen Gunn?"

Faith raised an eyebrow while Cassie hid a knowing smirk. "Isn't Stud-Muffin with you?"

"He was supposed to be," Jon stated nervously.

"And…" Dawn stared at the men in front of her. Over the past several days, she thought she'd come to know them pretty well. Now, the fact that Xander was hanging back from the other men scared her. In her dimension, her version only did that when he wanted to avoid a deadly confrontation.

"He's not there." Oz shrugged.

"Then where is he?" Joyce tried to modulate her voice so that she didn't sound murderous.

Judging by Jack's wince, she hadn't been successful.

"I think, dear," Mary O'Neill put her hands on Joyce's shoulder in a comforting gesture, "that we can safely say we don't know."

"That's nice, Mother, but what am I supposed to tell my daughter when she gets here?"

"Is she even coming?" Cassie knew that her part was coming when Sam hesitantly posed the question.

"Anya said she and Tara would bring Buffy by 9:30." She tried to look as innocent as possible when her phone rang.

Everyone watched her answer it and observed the conversation, as her expression grew increasingly panicked. "What do you mean she isn't there? Don't worry, B…It'll be fine. We'll figure out where Anya went…No, Gunn's missing too…We'll be waiting for you."

"Where's Anya?" Joyce was very close to hyperventilating.

"We don't know." Cassie was still trying to look innocent but worried. She didn't think it was working.

"Do you think that Anya and Gunn ran off together?" Kevin tried not to flinch as everyone around him turned to stare.

"They wouldn't do that…" Willow's voice trailed off uncertainly.

"It's Anya," Xander commented caustically.

**Yeah, she lives in L.A. she flies to New York City;**

**That woman's been around the world.**

**You can take that girl out of the honky tonk,**

"So where's the happy couple?" Cordelia and Fred were the only two of the AI gang that had elected to come to the wedding.

"Gunn ran off somewhere with Anya." Dawn stated this as coldly as she could. She still remembered how well Anya and Xander had worked out in her universe. The two had died together, and she didn't understand why they barely even liked each other here.

Fred blinked slowly. "Then that limo would have Buffy in it?"

They turned as a unit to look at the swerving vehicle. "And Tara," Willow confirmed. "I just don't understand how Gunn could do that to Buffy."

"I'm going to rip his throat out," Jack finally hissed as the limo finally came to a semi-stop and Tara hopped out.

"You have to help. She's been hysterical ever since Cassie said that Gunn was missing and with Anya missing, her nerves are just on edge. Have either of them shown up yet?" Tara babbled and rambled nervously.

"No," Cassie held back a smirk and she could tell Tara was trying to do the same.

At that instant, the woman in the bridal dress leaned out of the limo. "B just called. They made it Cancun and they're about to get married."

"ANYA!" Everyone yelped in surprise.

"Hi!"

"Are you telling me my daughter eloped?" Joyce growled dangerously.

Mary patted her daughter on the shoulders. "Don't worry, dear. Did anyone know that this was going to occur other than Anya?" She raised an eyebrow at the young woman in the bride's dress.

"I did," Tara stammered quietly.

"And I helped plan it," Cassie stated boldly. "We couldn't let on that this was going on until we knew they were in Mexico."

"Will someone call the travel agent?" Giles asked slowly. He'd suspected that the two had eloped. That was the only reason why he hadn't started ranting with everyone else. He had to admit that his wife was relatively scary when she was angry.

"Why?" Dawn asked slowly. After three days here, she still wasn't too sure about this strange family dynamic these people had working for them.

"Because we're going to Mexico to crash their honeymoon," Cassie stated logically.

Faith blinked. "You got that from what G-man said?"

"Yep."

**But you can't take the honky tonk,**

**Take the honky tonk out of the girl.**

**Ooh.**

"Why are we on a plane to Mexico?" Joan stared at her roommate. "What's the point?"

"We're crashing Buffy's honeymoon," Willow volunteered from the seat in front of her. "She left her own wedding, not that I blame her, and decided to elope."

"This is our revenge," Cordelia chimed in. "Be glad that Angel can't come."

"He's been doing too much brooding," Dawn hissed. "I seriously can't remember my version being that broody the last time she dated someone else."

"Dude, she _married_ someone, D." Faith tapped the window semi-nervously. "I think that's just a tad different."

Grace laughed. "Just a tad," she repeated. "That's priceless."

"So, who is taking bets on this whole thing?" Tara asked.

"Don't know," was Anya's response.

"I am," Cassie raised her hand and accidentally waved it in a stranger's face. "Oh, I'm sorry, sir."

"So," Giles asked from across the aisle where Joyce was out cold due to Janet's nice needles and Fred was reading a scientific magazine. "What's the bet about this time?"

"Their reaction."

"Put me down for twenty in favor of them kicking us out," Jack called.

"Forty for them being pissed, but letting us stay," Daniel volunteered.

"Do archeologists say the word 'pissed?'" Kevin asked with a grin.

"Ours does," Sam laughed. "Ten for someone being thrown into the ocean by one of the oh-so-happy newlyweds."

The man Cassie had disturbed looked at the family quizzically. "Dare I ask why you're betting on this?"

"My sister ran off from her own wedding with the groom, and chose to elope. As retribution, we're crashing her honeymoon," Xander volunteered. "Put me down for fifteen for them throwing at one or all of us and ten more for that person being Uncle Jack or Mom."

"Ah." Joan just glared at the businessman. She knew who he was; she just wished God hadn't chosen to fly on their flight.

Later, as she walked to the ladies' room, she asked him why he was there.

"I needed a vacation." Then he looked at the chaos around them. "Then again, I think I should have taken a different flight."

"I thought God was all knowing."

"I am, but I'm also a caffeine addict, and I haven't had a cappuccino since before I booked the flight." They watched the extended Summer-Giles-Frasier-Carter-O'Neill family play catch with Buffy's veil. "I have the feeling I'm going to need a double."

Joan looked at her roommate's family and the only thought that went through her mind was, "Who is God's travel agent?"

A/N: Yes, this seems like a rather abrupt place to stop. However, there is a 'Stays in Mexico' story coming…eventually…that covers the 'honeymoon crashing.' Read and review please! In addition, my muse and I can say two things totally truthfully: one year ago, our parents made an escape route. It is still there. Also, hairspray really does work…as long as it's extra strength! Gel does not work.

Muse Note: Because it's me, I thought you all might get a kick out of seeing the dresses for the bride, bridesmaids, and maid of honor. Buffy's wedding dress was picked out by Joyce; the maid of honor's dress was picked by Buffy. It was her form of revenge. Cassie chose the bridesmaids' dresses while on a revenge kick herself.

Buffy's wedding dress is the third entry on April 13, 2003. This is borrowed from the site and we would like to thank those there for their inspiration (Their dresses have provided a great deal of humor for both author and muse.). http/ uglyweddingdress . net / index . php / P15/ (Remember, remove the spaces.)

The rest are taken from the music video for this song. CMT's website has this video available under the duo's name.


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